Qwest in Ore. and BellSouth in Ala. had opposite results from bac...
Qwest in Ore. and BellSouth in Ala. had opposite results from backup systems designed to keep phone service running in case of mishaps. In Qwest’s case, a flooding river south of Oregon City, Ore., over the weekend exposed a…
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portion of a fiber backbone cable buried in the riverbank and debris washing downstream severed the cable. The cable was part of a “self-healing” fiber ring that Qwest had spent millions to install in the region. Qwest said the ring worked as intended, instantly rerouting to alternate pathways the voice and data traffic of the 250,000 customers in the affected area. It said no one lost service and calls in progress continued without interruption. Meanwhile, BellSouth said the cause of a baffling call misrouting problem that affected customers in the Huntsville metro area in northern Ala. Mon. was traced to a faulty switch data card in a Huntsville wire center, and a backup system that also failed. The intermittent glitch affected both landline and wireless calls. Users would dial a number and immediately be disconnected, in some cases getting a dial tone again. Businesses reported problems processing credit or debit card transactions, and some had to close. The problem also affected 911 centers in the area. BellSouth said the switch’s internal trouble-checking system caught the bad card and activated a backup, but the backup card also failed. BS said it was seeking the cause of the double failure. Service was normal by Tues.