BRIAN: " DEAD FISH ": INTERNET TELEPHONY:Here it is:
SINGING THE NETWORK BLUES
MCI WorldCom outage strikes with little explanation Aug 16, 1999
internettelephony.com
LIANE H. LABARBA
It can happen to anyone, but it's especially rough when it happens to you. MCI
WorldCom knows firsthand. The carrier?s outage started Aug. 5 and still was not
completely restored at press time.
The outage ran rampant across the country in the carrier?s frame relay networks
in major metropolitan areas such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. The
onset of the outage downed about 30% of MCI WorldCom?s frame relay
customers, though that number dropped as last week ended. Despite the
partially restored service, the event proved to be a customer satisfaction
nightmare.
The carrier blamed software upgrades being performed on Lucent Technologies?
frame relay switches. A Lucent spokesman confirmed the problem, although he
could not offer additional details.
An artillery of MCI WorldCom and Lucent technicians worked around the clock to
isolate and correct the infectious software glitch, an MCI WorldCom
spokeswoman said. ?We have been doing upgrades for around six months
without any problems, and then this happened.? Complicating matters further,
traffic was rerouted to other switches where it then ran into other downed
switches and was rerouted again.
Not surprisingly, customers got restless. The Chicago Board of Trade lost five
business days and approximately 45,000 trades because of the outage. ?Our
CEO met with MCI WorldCom just two days before the outage to express our
dissatisfaction with the service, and we were assured upgrades would be made
to remedy the problems,? said Katherine Spring, a spokeswoman for the Board of
Trade. To insulate itself from future outages, the board will rely on its own
network as a backup and plans to review its relationship with MCI WorldCom.
Another customer, Cash Station, felt less crippling effects of the failure. The
company, which operates automated teller machines in the Midwest,
experienced only sporadic and short-lived service interruptions. But the company,
which uses MCI WorldCom through its relationship with EDS, also has a backup
network that provided protection in some areas.
The scaling of the frame relay network to add new customers forced the upgrade,
but others speculated different reasons, the MCI WorldCom spokeswoman said.
THERE IS A DEAD BODY ROLLED UP SOME WHERE IN THIS ,
said Melanie Posey, an analyst with IDC. MCI WorldCom said they were
planning on interconnecting the MCI network to the WorldCom network by the third
quarter of this year,? she said, noting that the process was supposed take about
six months, which correlates with its software upgrades.
?I have never noticed software upgrades taking six months,?I said Jules Meunier,
general manager of carrier data networks for Nortel Networks. When upgrades
take that long, carriers increase the risk of errors from operators and software
mismatches, said Meunier.
MCI WorldCom is not alone in its frame relay woes, though. A similar outage
halted AT&T?s national frame relay network for 24 hours in April 1998. Affected
customers were apprised of network progress and received free services until the
cause was determined, said Jim Dougherty, general manager of data services
marketing for AT&T. Now, the carrier takes added precautions to protect its
networks from future problems. AT&T also has changed its monitoring
capabilities to enable better command of control messages.
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briand." Rotten fish stinks even more now ":
( My comments in bold-italics ).
newsalert.com.
August 16, 1999 17:21
MCI WorldCom moves to soothe network customer
rife
By Ilaina Jonas
NEW YORK, Aug 16 (Reuters) - The head of MCI WorldCom Inc. on Monday
moved to make amends with the thousands of customers left in cyberdarkness
by the service disruption along its high-speed data network and to placate
investor concerns that the problem -- now mostly fixed -- could cut its profit.
Chief Executive Bernard Ebbers said customers whose systems were left in
the lurch during the 10-day outage would get a service credit of two cost-free
days for each day they lost.
Ebbers also told reporters during a news conference that the disruption would
have little effect on third quarter revenue and would not hurt its profit.
listen to this b-zo: he is more interested in allaying WCOM investor fears than taking care of his customers.First words out.
"We will see a very, very slight down tick in revenue for the amount of time we
were not offering the network," Ebbers said. "The company is still very
comfortable with the consensus earnings expectation for the quarter and for
the year."
Analysts expect it to earn 54 cents per share in the third quarter and $1.97 for
the year, according to First Call/Thomson Financial. Its shares shed 1/4 to
close at 78-7/16 on Nasdaq, where it was Monday's eighth most active issue.
About 3,000 customers use the frame-relay network to send high-speed
information from their computers over dedicated private networks they lease
from the No. 2 U.S. long-distance phone company. Their monthly bills range
from $1,000 to "in the six-figures," Ebbers said.
The company did not know if all the customers on that particular network, one
of four it operates, experienced problems, he said.
MCI WorldCom detected problems with the network on Aug. 5 during routine
monitoring work, said Ron Beaumont, president of network services. About four
weeks ago, the company installed new software, made by Lucent
Technologies Inc. to allow the network to support additional customers and
services.
On Aug. 13, MCI WorldCom shut down the network, removed the upgraded
software and reinstalled the old software, also made by Lucent.
I guess the newly hired,defecting,engineers from NN must have screwed up!!! Did they defect from Nn briand or where they fired for incompetence?
Also, is this telling me that 3 years of R&D at LU for new software is now down the drain? Like Stratacom?
The process,
begun Saturday, was completed for domestic customers Sunday afternoon,
Beaumont said.
As of Monday, the company was working out minor problems with some
customers. Less than one-tenth of a percent of customers still have problems,
Beaumont said.
Customer anger continues, however. For some, two days of free service for
each they lost may not be enough.
"We're reviewing our legal recourses as well our relationship with them as our
provider," said Katherine Spring, spokeswoman for the Chicago Board of Trade.
"We're extremely frustrated and hugely inconvenienced."
The CBOT, where options and futures are traded on anything from rice to
Treasury bonds, said its electronic trading system, which runs on the network,
was down 60 percent over the past seven business days and did not return
until Sunday evening. About 5 percent of its volume comes from electronic
trading, and the outage cost it 200,000 contracts, she said.
Spring said the CBOT had told MCI WorldCom it was having network
slowdowns before the network failed Aug. 5.
briand: I guess even the old software is now passe'.This started way back when.So what's the plan now?
"The CBOT has been proactive in dealing with the MCI WorldCom network
problems, beginning with my meeting with top MCI WorldCom executives two
days before the first outage occurred and subsequent discussions with CEO
Bernard Ebbers," CBOT Chief Executive Thomas Donovan wrote members in a
letter dated Monday.
"There may in certain extenuating circumstances for a customer," Ebbers
said. "We'll handle that on a case-by-case basis."
I can't believe this b-zo: a customer " has extenuating circumstances" after you screwed up his phones? ".Get a life Benny
Meanwhile, engineers from Lucent and its research and development arm, Bell
Labs, have not yet identified the problem's source, Lucent spokesman Bill
Price said.
again brian: this is bad. If you don't know what killed the patient, you are in for a cartload of trouble buddy
Ebbers estimated the old network software can support the system for a least another 18 months.
Really. You mean just like the new system did?
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