[19632] in North American Network Operators' Group
RE: FCC outage reports
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Goldstein_William@bns.att.com)
Fri Sep 18 17:39:49 1998
From: Goldstein_William@bns.att.com
Date: Fri, 18 Sep 1998 16:43:00 -0400
TO: nanog@merit.edu, SEAN@SDG.DRA.COM
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From what I have seen, I'm not sure these figures are accurate. Beyond
the qualifications that you offered, another factor is the size of the
network (i.e. if one carrier has three times the fiber miles and
customers of another carrier but has the same number of outages, the
"one is just the same as the other" argument might be a little tenuous.)=
I will check for a direct source, if I can find it, for NANOG list
subscribers to access this information independent of any carrier or
ISP. Because of a holiday and business travel, I won't get back on this=
immediately, but I'll try to follow this up in the next two weeks.
Bill Goldstein
Senior Internet Specialist
AT&T
wgoldstein@att.com
TEL:(412)642-7288
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From: SEAN
Sent: Friday, September 18, 1998 4:06 PM
To: nanog
Cc: SEAN
Subject: FCC outage reports
=20
Goldstein_William@bns.ATt.COM writes:
>There IS a difference. The FCC keeps records of outages which must
be
>reported by the carriers.
>
>It is worth checking these out.
=20
I think there are some problems with how the FCC outage reports count=
things, but here goes....
=20
FCC outage reports by year and inter-exchange carrier
=20
1992 1993 1994 1995 1996
AT&T 3 15 7 18 17
MCI 13 12 19 9 15
Sprint 3 11 3 12 9
WorldCom NA NA NA 7 13
=20
There are all sorts of normalization problems, different reporting
requirements (e.g. if you serve airports you have to report more
outages), some carriers report only when the must, other carriers
report anything even close to being reportable, and so on. Also,
if you know how fiber swapping works, sometimes its luck of the
draw who gets tapped when a shared right-of-way gets chopped.
=20
For overall trend analysis the FCC outage reports serve a useful
purpose. But comparing one carrier to another is a different matter
and I'd rather they not get turned into another Boardwatch fiasco
with
people manipulating their numbers.
=20
Note: I haven't gone to FCC reading room in Washington DC and counted=
the actual reports myself, these numbers are third-hand from one of
the carriers salespeople. Caveat Emptor.
-- =20
Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO
Affiliation given for identification not representation
=20
<<File: FCC outage reports.TXT>>
=20
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