Subject: RE: [Ieprep] Power Outages - North East US 14/08

From: "Nguyen, An" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2003 21:53:07 -0400

Just a curiosity, I wonder how this power outage caused any problem for the
PSTN.

An

-----Original Message-----
From: Lawrence Stromski
To: [email-masked]
Sent: 8/14/03 6:56 PM
Subject: [Ieprep] Power Outages - North East US 14/08

Hi,

I'm based in the UK, I'm just watching the Internet and the News reports
at
23:23 British Summer Time literally during the power outage that
affected
the North East of the US. I thought I'd just record a few notes with
this
mailing list, from a UK point of view.
(I am hanging off the BT Global Network in the UK, bt.net.)

It's very difficult to ascertain exactly what's down, and if it's a
result
of the power outages.

So far, I have no connectivity on the ATDN, AOL Transit Data Network
beyond
their London router, pop1-loh-P5-2.atdn.net. This is preventing me from
making a connection to the CNN Webserver, www.cnn.com.

"America Online spokesman Nicholas Graham said the company, the largest
U.S.
Internet service, had witnessed a dip in simultaneous users at 1 p.m.
EDT.
The count fell from 2.4 million members online to 2.1 million." -CNet
News.
AOL seem to be a recurring theme in this power outage. Were they less
prepared than any other company or network?

No response on Global Crossings network past London.
so3-2-0-622M.cr2.LON3.gblx.net. This is preventing communication with
the
Global Crossings web server too.

No response from denver-br2.bbnplanet.net 4.0.0.118 past Washington DC,
Level3. so-1-0-0.bbr1.Washington1.level3.net.

Taking a quick look also at our company's What's Up Gold (we are
privately
connected across the globe through Global Crossings) nothing happened.
All
our sites remained up, including Elizabeth, Baltimore, Chicago Heights.

I think because there are so many possible routes across the pond, and
so
much redundancy in North East US, a power outage like this will make a
very
small dent in the Internet.
Looking at internettrafficreport.com, there is definitely a noticeable
mark
corresponding to the power outage. Packet Loss goes up, response times
go
up.

I guess in the 21st century world, power outages don't necessarily mean
network/internetwork outages any more. That's just my take on things.

And just as I finish writing this up, www.cnn.com has recovered, and I
can
now connect.

Links: http://news.com.com/2100-1011_3-5063997.html?tag=fd_top

Regards,
-Lawrence Stromski.

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---

From: Bill Woodcock <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2003 19:24:50 -0700 (PDT)

> Just a curiosity, I wonder how this power outage caused any problem for the

Repeater huts without generators are starting to go offline, as their
batteries run out.

                                -Bill

---

From: RJ Atkinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2003 11:03:55 -0400

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3153347.stm

BBC News reports the Internet fared well:
------------------------------------------
The net has survived the US power outage largely unscathed.

Firms monitoring the internet's core cables said the blackout had not 
slowed traffic or caused any significant delays.

Experts said the net's structure helped it cope with the shutdown of 
networks in the affected areas.

Some websites were briefly troubled by an increase in visitors looking 
for news about the power problems but they easily coped with the surge.

...more online at above URL...