Officials at Cingular Wireless LLC, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Corp. and BellSouth Corp. reported separately at noon today that with flooding and power outages in New Orleans, crews can't access cellular sites and switching stations for repairs. Sprint.s crews are waiting in Baton Rouge, La., until officials say it's safe to enter New Orleans, a spokesman said. On Fri, 2 Sep 2005, Jon Lewis wrote:

I've encountered several toll free numbers (like the BellSouth DSG) which can no longer be dialed from Gainesville, FL roughly coinciding with Katrina slamming the Gulf Coast. I finally called BellSouth (the local ILEC) and asked what was up, as I can't get through from Gainesville, but I can if I use our VOIP network to route the calls out through other cities in FL (or if I use my Cingular cell phone).

According to BellSouth repair, it's a Sprint call routing problem. I found it amusing and unlikely that BellSouth's DSG would use Sprint for their phone lines.

Is anyone aware of Sprint having LD voice routing issues, probably a result of Katrina damage?

---------------------------------------------------------------------- Jon Lewis | I route Senior Network Engineer | therefore you are Atlantic Net | _________ http://www.lewis.org/~jlewis/pgp for PGP public key_________

http://www2.sprint.com/mr/cda_pkDetail.do?id=660 Current Service Impacts: Wireless and wireline services in hurricane area impacted by flooding and power outages. Long distance voice and data service to Sprint local telephone customers in Florida panhandle impacted, also to customers in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama; traffic rerouting efforts underway to avoid a key switch in the damage area. Sprint Nextel's Enterprise Incident Management Team, the group which oversees disasters such as hurricanes, will be deploying a Mobile Command Center with full network and Information Technology capabilities to coordinate Sprint Nextel's massive recovery effort.