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DSL upgrade results in outage

March 10, 2000

BY HOWARD WOLINSKY BUSINESS REPORTER

Ameritech Corp.'s efforts to upgrade its high-speed Internet service in anticipation of a major expansion resulted in a two-day service outage for early adopters in the southern and western suburbs.

"It happened with the best of intentions," said Ameritech spokesman Brian Kyhos.

During a low-traffic period early Tuesday, Ameritech technicians began upgrading software to accommodate expected growth of the digital subscriber line service, called DSL. Kyhos said the techs noticed that service was being disrupted in the 708 and 630 area codes.

He said, "The software started to cause routing glitches," affecting the handoff of data between Ameritech Advanced Data Services and the DSL service.

The outage affected about 100 customers, or 10 percent of the customers for the new service in the Chicago area.

The upgrade was halted to prevent the problem from spreading. DSL service was restored at 5:15 a.m. Thursday, Kyhos said.

Though the number of customers affected was small, the outage occurred at a critical time in the roll-out of the new service. SBC Communications Inc., Ameritech's corporate parent as of last year, is spending $6 billion to develop DSL services in competition with cable companies' high-speed modems.

"We're expecting this to be a boom year [for DSL]," Kyhos said.

Residential DSL delivers data up to 50 times faster than conventional modems--and costs $40 to $50 a month.

Kyhos said customers affected by the outage can have their bills adjusted by calling (800) 910-4369.

Ameritech currently is offering a special for DSL installation, waiving the $200 charge for the modem and the $150 for installation.

-- (Dee360Degree@aol.com), March 11, 2000

Answers

Response to World--DSL Upgrade Resuls in Outage

Do we know where this is happening? Everywhere?

Maybe this explains, why, when I called US West from my office in Ogden Utah, they did an *extraordinary* tap dance around why my DSL service was not going to be delivered on March 31, 2000, as promised. When probbed further (and boy did I have to PROBE), I was told that the "switch in my area was down" and that my order had been dropped by the system. Or maybe not. Maybe it was in the pool of orders. Or maybe not. But they couldn't tell, because they couldn't look at the pool of orders. Why not? Because the ability to look at the pool of orders was down, too. Or maybe not. Tap tap tappity tap ...what a dance.

Okaaaaayyyyy.... so when were they going to tell me this? Well, they couldn't because I was dropped from the pool of orders. Or maybe not.

And around and around we go, where we will stop, nobody knows. Nevermind that my business actually needs this service to survive!

They were supposed to followup with me on Friday, but (surprise!) never did.

Sounds like I might be better off without it. Anybody else having problems with installation? Anybody have DSL now, who is willing to report on how it is going?

-- Jen Bunker (jen@bunkergroup.com), March 11, 2000.