Phone Outages Grow More Severe

[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Jesse Drucker jesse.drucker@wsj.com and Amy Schatz Amy.Schatz@wsj.com]
Despite a new focus on strengthening traditional U.S. telecommunications systems to withstand terrorism and natural disasters, telephone-network outages have grown more severe and are lasting longer to repair. Those conclusions are in a new report by an industry group of telecom service providers and equipment makers analyzing Federal Communications Commission figures. Amid Americans' persistent fears of terrorism, and in the wake of natural disasters like hurricanes Katrina and Wilma that have knocked out phone service, the findings raise new questions about whether landline telephone companies have done enough to improve the reliability of their networks. In the past four years, the median duration of an outage was 3.3 hours -- "significantly higher" than the 2.86 hours it took to restore operations during the first eight years data were tracked, according to the report. The severity of the outages -- which takes into account several factors, including the number of customers affected -- has also jumped over the past four years. Network engineers and company executives offer varying explanations for the trends. Some say that outages are getting more severe because of changes in network design that favor the use of fiber-optic lines. The report is being released as a debate is growing about who is responsible for ensuring telephone network reliability. As more consumers reject traditional phones for cellular, cable networks and the Internet, big telephone companies argue current regulations should no longer apply.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113159125280993231.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
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