Hospital Phone Service out almost 11 hours and counting

[ultrarunner]

My employer, a Hospital, has been without telephone service over 9 hours...

The problem started at approximately 3:45 pm Thursday.

The entire area is in the process of under-grounding the utilities as part of a area wide beautification project that has been in the works since 2000 and finally got going this summer.

Numerous calls to customer service and several with the Escalation Supervisor have provided assurance and so far the problem remains... Phone company acknowledges bad T-1 lines as cause.

Anyone have any idea on what it takes to get a repair... even for a hospital... cells phones only go so far.

Friends retired from the phone company can't believe the lack of service... "Never would have happened back in the day" is the most common response I get.

I can't believe the phone company can't get going on this? Makes you realize how vulnerable you are...

I have to stay until the phones are working... good thing we have beds here...

 

[tommu56]

We have the t1 lines at work.
We ended up changing carriers after 3 or 4 outages all called computer problems at the carrier.

We decided to spit the lines between 2 carriers and 4 t1 lines (we have over 100 lines in the plant) because our business depends on them so much.

That doesn't help a physical damage problem but we haven't seen that much.

We even left 3 fax lines hard wired to local mabell just in case.

tom

 

[dmccarty]

Make a cell phone call to the state utility regulator.

Then make more cell phone calls to the local TV and print media.

And make it a point to mention you are having to use a cell phone to make the call.

Does the outage effect data service? Which is worse from a patient service perspective, loss of data or phone service?

Later,
Dan

 

[JB4310]

No mater what the change over or upgrade, it should be a totally seamless transition for a hospital, without 1 minute of down time.

Somebodies head's gonna roll for that mess up. Hope it doesn't cost the life of a patient, Data, internet etc would be worse nowadays, but still no land line phone/fax service?

 

[Volfandt]

Sounds like a cable (or two) has gotten cut. I work for a CLEC that provides both network (voice and internet) and onsite eqt (PBX's, switches routers etc., ) and 9 hrs is HIGHLY UNEXCEPTABLE in this trade.
It doesn't matter if your service is via T1, PRI or analog trks, they have to get to your facility the same way, either via fibre or copper. So if there is cable plant damage that would partially explain the extended outage. Fibre has to be repaired in a more precise manner than copper and any shortcuts done now will effect service from then on. So it has to be done right!
It's possible there is multiple cuts/damage and if there are other extenuating circumstances such as a major damage to switching equipment or an accident involving human extraction, those issues have to be addressed before any damaged cable plant can be repaired.
Sometimes the local offices have all the necessary eqt but depending upon what particular piece of eqt is damaged, it could be a couple of states away.

In any case, going by the amount of time you've reported the service being down, my guess is that theres some extenuating circumstances involved and you're facility isn't the only one thats down.

 

[ultrarunner]

Just got up and running at 6:43 am... had a great tech and he drove some distance to get here... he is the ONLY one that does the fiber stuff (eventhough we don't have fiber inside) and said his territory is several thousand square miles at night...

Glad to have it up...

Two things... the T-1 pairs were shorted... it started raining yesterday afternoon and he had a Harris tool that pin points how many feet the problem is from where he connects it... he pinpointed it to the underground work...

It took some time because he put a sounder on different unused pairs and drove to the central office where he had never been before and made the switch and then swapped out the interface on our side because it didn't sync.

He said the only reason he was sent is because we are a hospital... glad he knew exactly what to do and could access everything he needed...

The business office and 611 is pretty useless for this stuff I have learned...

Did I say I'm glad it's working... there would have been a lot of unhappy people come 7 am when the first surgeries would start to be cancelled.

The phone company is scheduled to be here all day Saturday to splice cable... I'm hoping not to have another repeat.