Maybe this is a facet of natural disasters rarely afflicting downtown areas around here... I've noticed that every telco colo facility I've been in around downtown Dallas has the same design... All are in high-rise facilities, on the 10th-30th floors. All have the battery and A/C rooms around the elevator shafts at the center of the floor plan, surrounded by all the equipment racks/cages around the outside facing the windows. There are at least a dozen buildings in/near downtown Dallas with substantial carrier presence, many with 4+ telco-occupied floors. According to MFS, the majority of MAE-Dallas customers aren't in the overcrowded Infomart (where the MAE officially resides) since there's a surplus of fiber to the downtown carrier hotels. Every telco seems to run all of their cross-country fiber through these buildings. While there are geological reasons I doubt downtown Dallas is likely to get hit with a tornado like Ft Worth was (off-topic, email me), I can't imagine the hell that would ensue if it did. S | | Stephen Sprunk, K5SSS, CCIE #3723 :|: :|: Network Consulting Engineer, NSA :|||: :|||: 14875 Landmark Blvd #400; Dallas, TX .:|||||||:..:|||||||:. Email: ssprunk@cisco.com ----- Original Message ----- From: Sam Thomas To: Rodney L Caston Cc: Sean Donelan ; nanog@merit.edu Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2000 10:49 Subject: Re: Arlington and Fort Worth, Texas On Wed, Mar 29, 2000 at 11:29:03AM -0600, Rodney L Caston wrote:
There is alot of ISPs in the Dallas/FortWorth area, tho a good chunk of it is located centrally in one building in the downtown vicinity of Dallas, the infomart building seems to house backbones for Verio and the MAEs... hrm.. had the tornado hit that building......
...in the best case scenario, I wouldn't have internet service. worst case, I wouldn't have a need for oxygen. building secutity made an announcement Tuesday evening that there was a tornado warning for Dallas County, although the only known activity was well to the south. in the event of proximity to the 'mart, we'd have abandoned the NOC, informed the necessary folks, and headed for underground parking to listen to the radio in my car. then, MCIW's gear would be sucked out the windows, ending a lot of needless suffering on the part of their customers. there are several other telcos in the building who haven't learned to insulate their CO gear from tornados by placing management offices around the winow perimeter. -- Sam Thomas Geek Mercenary