Unconfirmed report from poster at Yourdon site: cellular network out in NZ

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The subject line says all I know. A poster on the Ed Yourdon site claims to have contact with a business friend in NZ who tells him/her that the entire cellular phone network is out. I have no other confirmation of this.

-- meg davis (meg9999@aol.com), December 31, 1999

Answers

Good morning, meg!

It's called the "Mother's Day" problem. It happens when too many people use the phones at the same time and they jam up. Phone companies just can't handle the load. The service will return to normal once people settle down.

---/--@

-- (Ladylogic46@aol.com), December 31, 1999.


My NZ contact reports that this is simply network conjestion.

-- Steve Davis (Columbia, MD) (Steve@davislogic.com), December 31, 1999.

Here is more:

I would treat all this with great care - the only phone issues I have heard of related to overloading of international circuits immediately after midnight and some spasmodic cell phone overloads. I am in regular contact with our monitoring agencies at the top level and can assure you all that no such incidents have been reported officially. No riots have been reported. To give you some context the Riverton referred to is a tiny area of a few hundred people. The report I sent recently to our colleagues in Canada said : The sun has just risen after a quiet night in New Zealand. No significant incidents were reported in any sector and apart from a steady accident and emergency workload all hospitals reported uninterrupted service. Phones, faxes, emails and the internet all worked normally, but mobile phones went down briefly through overloading in some areas just after the transition. Overseas phone circuits were also overloaded for periods.

Happy New Year to you all. Steve Brazier Ministry of Health New Zealand

-- Steve Davis (Columbia, MD) (Steve@davislogic.com), December 31, 1999.


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