Business: Toll-free phone service interrupted in Midwest

The Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio (October 3, 2001 3:23 p.m. EDT) - An Ameritech spokeswoman said that toll-free phone service was interrupted Wednesday in five Midwestern states.

An overloaded Ameritech server caused the problem, said Denise Koenig of the regional phone company's Cleveland office. She said the company did not immediately know why the server overloaded.

Service was interrupted about 9:15 a.m. in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin and Illinois, she said. Partial service was restored about an hour later, and the company expected full service to resume later Wednesday.

Ameritech is owned by SBC Communications of San Antonio and has more than 12 million phone customers in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin and Illinois.

Although mainly affecting calls passing through the Midwest region, AT&T spokesman Dan Lawler in New Jersey also reported sporadic trouble with toll-free calls placed to and from other areas of the country.

Lawler said the outage problems appeared to be easing by midday, but that all major long distance carriers had been affected.

WorldCom spokeswoman Jennifer Baker said the outage appeared to stem from a problem at a traffic switching facility near Chicago operated by Ameritech.

"We're working to reroute calls as appropriate, and we're working with Ameritech to help sort it out," Baker said.

http://www.nandotimes.com/business/story/121060p-1288789c.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), October 03, 2001