[Fair use for education and research purposes only]

Title: Paris phone system goes on the blink in giant crash

Source: Associated Press Publication date: 2000-05-03

PARIS (AP) -- Half of the telephones in Paris went on the blink Wednesday in a giant crash that began in the morning and continued into the night. The problem concerned the "global flux" of telephone traffic in Paris and nearby suburbs, meaning that affected phones in the region worked some of the time, but not all the time, France Telecom said.

The state-run phone company attributed the problem to malfunctioning equipment in two of the network's signaling centers.

The crash began at 10:30 a.m. (0830 GMT) and worsened with an overload on the legs of the network that were functioning, the press office said.

Jean-Philippe Vanot, head of France Telecom's long distance network, said that backup systems were being put into place "to avoid a similar crisis situation tomorrow."

Special emergency numbers for police and firefighters were not concerned by the problem, nor were mobile phones.

(parf-eg) The Associated Press News Service Copyright 2000 by The Associated Press All Rights Reserved

http://realcities.yellowbrix.com/pages/realcities/Story.nsp?story_id=10312814&site=charlotte&ID=realcities&scategory=Computers%3AY2K

====================

-- (Dee360Degree@aol.com), May 03, 2000

Answers

This is, far and away, the biggest telecommunicatons disaster yet.

-- Uncle Fred (dogboy45@bigfoot.com), May 04, 2000.

I've got to agree. I've heard of nothing of this magnitude yet. And, don't forget, the telecom people use routers, just like the Internet does.

-- Wellesley (wellesley@freeport.com), May 04, 2000.