AT&T tells what caused January's glitch

Article Abstract:

On the day AT and T offers discounts averaging 33 percent off normal long-distance rates to atone for its Jan 15 breakdown - on Valentine's Day, Feb 14, 1990 - the company also provides an overview of what happened that afternoon. The crisis, which resulted in less than half the long-distance calls being completed, was the worst in AT and T's history and was caused by the omission of a few lines of code on some switching software. After hours of searching engineers were able to find the faulty coding and design a simple patch enabling the system to get up and running again. The problem was with software that directs calls from one switching center to another to optimize the speed with which calls are completed. The software failed to include instructions for signalling the system when switching computers were done with one operation and ready for another.

Communications Equipment, Evaluation, Discount

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AT&T cost cutting sparked outage

Article Abstract:

AT&T's power failure in New York, on Tuesday, Sep 17, 1991, was caused by rectifiers that failed when AT&T switched to its own power supply. The telecommunications company has a contract with Consolidated Edison Company of New York Inc to switch to its own generators during peak power use periods. After the rectifiers failed, AT&T's system switched to batteries for power, but workers failed to notice alarms showing the batteries were running down. The power failure caused long distance phone service interruptions and compromised air traffic control communications in the area. AT&T has a reduced-rate contract with Con Edison based on AT&T's requirement to switch to its own power supply system. AT&T signed the plan as part of a cost-cutting policy.

Electric and other services combined, Analysis, Services, Telecommunications systems, Air traffic control, Telecommunication switching equipment, Telecommunications switching equipment, Cost control, System failures (Engineering), Consolidated Edison Inc., Cost Reduction, Backup Power Supply

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US Sprint tries to reach out and thump AT&T over snafu

Article Abstract:

US Sprint Communications and its advertising agency J Walter Thompson Co are considering ways to benefit from AT&T's network failure, which occurred on Mon, Jan 15, 1990. Sprint and Thompson already reportedly have come up with possible newspaper ads. 'Obviously,' says Jorge Rodriguez, Sprint's VP for advertising and direct marketing, 'it could be a great opportunity for us.' MCI Communications, AT&T's other large competitor, will not try to take advantage of AT&T's misfortune. AT&T itself is running ads that apologize for and explain the failure of its network.

Planning, Advertising, Beliefs, opinions and attitudes, Sprint Corp., JWT Worldwide, column, Competition, Advertising (Industry), Rodriguez, Jorge

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