From: "Zeb Haradon" <zharadon@inconnect.com>
From: Kathryn Aegis <k_aegis@mindspring.com>
>>
>>In discussing phone access with a few programmers last night, one
>>of them pointed out that the real problem is not going to be the
>>actual phone line. Rather, the problem may be that everyone will
>>give into the temptation to pick up the phone to see if there is
>>a dial tone at 12:01 am on January 1st, thereby overloading the
>>circuits and knocking out the dial tones....
>
>I've read about this too.. but everyone is not in the same time
>zone.. it won't be 12:01 everywhere at the same time, everyone
>won't pick up their phone at the same time. But I guess even 1 out
>of 24 of 6 billion is still a lot of phones.
<DISCLAIMER> I do not speak for SBC/Ameritech
Okay, this is what I do for a living. Here at Ameritech (the midwest RBOC) we have some 250 million lines. We do not have capacity for all 250 million to operate at once. (to save the customers money)
So if everyone picks up the phone at once, some are going to get sent to Intercept and get an "I'm sorry but all circuits are busy, please hang up and try your call again later".
All facilities will be heavily manned to prevent any outages. Individual C.O's experience these overloads every now and then. (Fathers day, stones concerts, etc)
Brian
Member, Extropy Institute, www.extropy.org
Life Extension Foundation, www.lef.org
National Rifle Association, www.nra.org, 1.800.672.3888
Mars Society, www.marssociety.org
Ameritech Data Center Chicago, IL, Local 134 I.B.E.W