Lawmakers, Business Press Phone Firms Over Outages : Communications: Companies seek backup systems after crashes interrupted service to millions this year.
WASHINGTON — With new technology repeatedly bringing down a national phone system it is supposed to make more agile, consumer groups, lawmakers and business are taking steps to fortify the phone lines against more mishaps.
Since an industry group began tracking phone problems in early April, a total of 89 serious outages have disrupted service to millions of telephone users. The outages have blocked calls on 35 different 911 emergency systems, as well as lines serving airports, nuclear facilities and military sites.
In a recent move reflecting phone users’ anxiety, the Federal Communications Commission put on hold until May 1 the deadline for telephone companies to introduce new technology that will enable firms to keep their toll-free 800 numbers even if they switch long-distance carriers.
Groups representing more than 19,000 credit card issuers had told the FCC that they feared major telephone service disruptions if the new technology was tested or installed during the critical holiday shopping season.
Companies are pouring money into backup systems that will keep them in business if the phones crash. Last week, for instance, the Midwest Stock Exchange paid about $50,000 for an extra switch to insure that its phone lines work even if the local telephone switching office goes out of service.
“You hope and pray that outages don’t occur,†said Jack Kennedy, vice president of information services at the Chicago exchange. “But these days, we need 100% reliability of our phone lines and equipment.â€
When it meets Tuesday, the FCC-appointed Network Reliability Council is expected to recommend that the commission pressure state and local governments to find ways to better protect phone cables from damage. It also wants data gathered on even relatively minor telephone outages, in an effort to better understand the technical malfunctions that have cropped up.
“We want a better look at how we might minimize dislocations,†said Paul Hensen, who heads the council. “It’s just a more complicated system. When something goes wrong today, all hell breaks loose.â€
Indeed, in recent years the nation’s telephone system has--with the emergence of computers--become the bloodstream of the nation’s commerce and public safety.
A 1990 report on the vulnerability of the New York telephone system, for example, warned that “a loss of telecommunications service for just one day in the Manhattan central business district could disrupt $1 trillion in financial transactions--an economic impact that would ripple through the U.S.â€
On Capitol Hill, the specter of such an outage has galvanized Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Finance.
Citing an Oct. 9 incident in which a Sprint switching station flooded--disrupting phone service for residents of Georgia, Florida and the Carolinas--Markey wrote FCC Chairman Alfred C. Sikes that the outage “raises the issue of the reliability of the public switching network and the adequacy of industry and regulatory mechanisms to deal with such outages.â€
Neither Sikes nor other FCC commissioners could be reached for comment. But Sikes told Markey in a Nov. 12 letter that it would be “premature to reach conclusions on policy or rule changes†before the FCC’s council concludes its work.
Telephone outages first received widespread attention in June, 1991, when back-to-back computer snafus knocked out service in Los Angeles, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington, D.C.
Those problems--later attributed to new telephone signaling software from DSC Communications Corp. of Plano, Tex.--have been solved. But the industry continues to be vulnerable to other maladies that have disrupted phone service an average of 16 times a month for as long as 12 hours and 45 minutes, according to an analysis being conducted by Markey’s subcommittee.
Since the FCC’s council began keeping detailed data, there have been 89 major outages affecting 50,000 or more customers and 66 less widespread outages.
Nearly a third of the phone outages involved damaged cable, such as when the Alabama State Highway Department severed a fiber optic cable on June 3, blocking nearly 300,000 calls over a two-hour period. Similarly, a fiber optic cable in Rialto, Calif., was cut June 4, blocking 1.5 million calls for nearly six hours.
But even greater problems are being caused by technologies at the heart of some of the telephone’s newest uses.
One is the Common Channel Signaling network, which routes calls to the right destination. Another is the Signal System No. 7 telephone operating protocol, which defines a common communications language that enables phone companies to design and operate such high-tech features as automatic call-back, caller ID, 800 call routing and the like.
“SS7 is very critical,†said Karl Kramer, vice president for network operations at Sprint Corp. “You lose SS7, you lose your intelligent (phone) network.â€
Besides playing a role in the huge outages on the East and West coasts 18 months ago, modifications to SS7, or to computers associated with switching devices, have been at the center of 60 outages since April 6.
In one case, SS7 controls overloaded May 26, blocking 87,000 calls in the Las Vegas area. Phone service in Woodbridge, N.J., was disrupted twice in one week last July because of a defect in software interfacing with SS7. In Florida on Sept. 2, almost 120,000 calls were blocked on Sprint’s toll-free and information services lines for nearly four hours when an attempt to upgrade the lines produced an error in the switching system. Two weeks later, software glitches caused a 2 1/2-hour phone system crash in Queens, N.Y.
Industry executives say the phone system is generally as reliable today as it was before the breakup of the Bell system eight years ago. But critical parts of the network, they acknowledge, are more vulnerable to major outages.
Government agencies and consumers, phone companies note, have been slower than businesses to fortify themselves against outages. Both the council’s Hensen and Kramer of Sprint said government contracting rules traditionally haven’t been flexible enough to allow agencies to arrange backup phone service.
Gary Parson, a senior vice president at MCI Communications Corp., contends that more competition would improve any shortcomings in the phone system. Competition, he maintains, have made long distance carriers “clearly superior to the local Bell network.â€
However, some experts say the competition brought about by the court-ordered breakup of the Bell system monopoly--along with changes in the way telephone rates are set by regulators--is contributing to the technical problems. With leaner upstarts vying to provide local phone service, local Bell companies have little financial incentive to build costly precautions into their existing phone networks, experts say.
“Our frustration now is that the telephone companies are not keeping pace with the demand for circuit redundancy and diverse telephone routing†to avert outages, said Brian R. Moir, a Washington lawyer who represents many business telephone users. “We think further regulation would minimize the problem.â€
The tandem switch backup phone network that Illinois Bell arranged for the Midwest Stock Exchange last week is an example of the steps many businesses are taking in the interim. Spending to ensure telephone reliability is expected to jump to $18 billion in 1996 from $11 billion in 1992, according to Frost & Sullivan Inc., a New York consulting firm.
“As telecommunications changes the way people live and do business, more customers are making communications survivability a high priority,†said Carl Grivner, vice president of business services for Illinois Bell.
Out of Order
As the phone system grows more complex, human error and computer problems have emerged as significant trouble spots. Here is a chronology of recent telephone service outages:
June 26, 1991: Pacific Bell and Bell Atlantic Corp.’s Chesapeake & Potomac unit experience extended outages after signaling equipment and software fail under a deluge of computer generated messages indicating congestion on the phone network. The failure shuts down most local calling in Los Angeles, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington, D.C.
July 1: The same software fails again in Bell Atlantic’s Bell of Pennsylvania subsidiary, causing a major network failure that blocks calls in Western Pennsylvania.
Sept. 17: Power equipment malfunctions that go unnoticed by technicians in a New York AT&T; switching center lead to a more than six hour outage that snarls phone lines used by air traffic controllers, closing down airports in the region. Millions of long distance calls into and out of New York are blocked.
Nov. 5: During maintenance on two computers near Boston, technicians mistakenly place disk drives in the wrong slots, blocking more than a million calls. During the outage, the Federal Aviation Administration’s Boston control center loses approximately 50% of its phone lines, affecting 28% of the facility’s air-ground radar frequencies.
July 19 and 25, 1992: A defect in telephone switching software installed by Bell Atlantic in the Woodbridge, N.J., area causes two failures in a week, blocking 28,600 calls.
Sept. 2: A programming error in a software upgrade on Sprint’s long distance network blocks 119,099 calls on toll-free lines and information services exchanges for almost four hours in parts of Florida.
Sources: Federal Communications, news reports
What’s Bugging the Phone System?
Since a Federal Communications Commission panel began keeping track in April, the nation’s phone system has suffered 89 outages cutting service to 50,000 or more customers and 66 mishaps affecting smaller numbers of users. Here are the leading causes of the problems: Compuer software and hardware problems: 60% Cable cuts: 47% Natural disasters: 19% Loss of power: 17% Source: FCC Network Reliability Council
