[More news of the weird.]
New Network Connects D.C. to Twilight Zone
By Eric M. Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 3, 2005; B03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/02/AR2005080201581_pf.html
Voice mail can be annoying. But some callers to one District agency were
asked yesterday to, "Please leave a voice mail message for six million,
seven hundred ten thousand, five hundred fifty megats."
Huh?
People calling some District offices yesterday and Monday were greeted with
bizarre computer voices or dead lines, among other glitches affecting a new
city-run phone system that is replacing service through Verizon.
District officials say 911 emergency services have been successfully
transferred to the new system, called DC-NET. But the office of D.C.
Council Chairman Linda W. Cropp (D) was out of communication with the
outside world off and on Monday. So was the office of council member David
A. Catania (I-At Large), whose calls went to the office of council member
Adrian M. Fenty (D-Ward 4).
"It is definitely a major hiccup,'' Fenty said.
At times, Fenty said, his office staff used cell phones to communicate.
Fenty, a BlackBerry enthusiast, said he received no BlackBerry e-mails for
three days. "And then they all came at once yesterday," he said. "It went
nonstop for an hour."
A member of the chief financial officer's staff, experiencing a different
problem, was forced to communicate by e-mail because the phone wasn't
working. Staff members in the office of Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) couldn't
transfer calls.
There were lots of annoyed people.
"Finally, an excuse for District government unresponsiveness,'' said a
council aide, who commented on condition that he not be identified.
Vince Morris, spokesman for Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D), said the
system's introduction has been a success for the most part and has resulted
in only spotty outages and few complaints.
"The outages lasted a few hours, a day at the most," Morris said.
Morris said the rollout at the Wilson Building was just the latest in a
series of transfers to the system that began last year. He said the
transfer of phones for the D.C. Council and other offices was scheduled for
a slow summer weekend to minimize the disruption. The council is on recess.
Morris said he called Catania's office yesterday to make sure the phones
were working.
When completed, the city-owned network will connect about 400 government
buildings with fiber-optic lines threaded through underground pipes.
Officials said the District needs a fiber-optic network because the
existing copper-wire network does not meet the city's emergency response
needs. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, for instance, the
system was overloaded, they said.
The District has budgeted $66 million to start up DC-NET but expects to
save more than $10 million a year by owning as network instead of leasing
from Verizon, Morris said.
The process of transferring the city's 20,000 phone lines is about half
finished. City officials expect the process to be completed by early next year.
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
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