I was on the phone & IRC with a gentleman from New Zealand just now. He has posted his status on http://y2k.win.co.nz/cgi-bin/y2k.cgi. He asked me to post some observations to NANOG because he is not on NANOG-post (and because the FGC conference call is rather useless with all that background noise due to people leaving their speaker phones on without mute - but it would have been nice, thanx for trying Alan). He says that the Internet operated pretty much without a flaw, although utilization probably went up more than normal. :) However, the phone system is almost completely useless. He has two phones in his office and cannot call one from the other. (Although he says they are on different exchanges, so they might not hit the same CO.) Dial tone is there, but after dialing numbers, just dead air. Which is weird, because when I called him it rang and he picked up, no static or anything. (We do have a switch in NZ, but we have to ride the local PTT to the destination phone.) This is causing unusual failure modes for some systems, especially ISDN routers which are common in .nz and .au. So, overall, I would say that the world is probably not going to end. :) TTFN, patrick -- I Am Not An Isp - www.ianai.net ISPF, The Forum for ISPs by ISPs, <http://www.ispf.com> "Think of it as evolution in action." - Niven & Pournelle (OhMyGod - Watch out 'Net, I got enable again! ;-)
On Fri, 31 Dec 1999, I Am Not An Isp wrote:
So, overall, I would say that the world is probably not going to end. :)
I'm hoping all goes well later this afternoon when Russia hits midnight in Moscow (3pm CST). 34% Y2K Compliant... As long as ICBM's don't get launched I'll consider everything else minor inconveniences. :) I'm just glad I can spend next New Years (the actual end of the second millennium if you follow the Gregoarin Calendar) someplace nice in the Carribean with nice beaches, blue water and no pager/cellphone. I just don't want to hear from the New Millennium/21st century marketing monster all next year like we've heard from it this year. Interesting times, really. Isn't that a curse of some sort? -- Joseph W. Shaw - jshaw@insync.net Free UNIX advocate - "I hack, therefore I am."
I'm just glad I can spend next New Years (the actual end of the second millennium if you follow the Gregoarin Calendar) someplace nice in the Carribean with nice beaches, blue water and no pager/cellphone. I just don't want to hear from the New Millennium/21st century marketing monster all next year like we've heard from it this year.
I am sure you and I aren't the only ones planning something like that. I wonder if the beaches will be filled with ex-Y2000 types and the NOCs will be completely deserted on the Y2001 roll-over. That would be pretty funny. Deepak Jain AiNET (We're expecting a Happy New Year)
At 04:02 12/31/1999 -0800, I Am Not An Isp wrote:
However, the phone system is almost completely useless. He has two phones in his office and cannot call one from the other. (Although he says they are on different exchanges, so they might not hit the same CO.) Dial tone is there, but after dialing numbers, just dead air. Which is weird, because when I called him it rang and he picked up, no static or anything. (We do have a switch in NZ, but we have to ride the local PTT to the destination phone.)
This is causing unusual failure modes for some systems, especially ISDN routers which are common in .nz and .au.
I wonder if this is due to the fact that everyone in the time zone is picking up the phone and looking for a dial tone, or calling all their friends to see if they survived. Our local phone company circulated a recommendation to avoid picking up the phone at midnight. A couple of million people doing this would cause some undesirable effects (fast busies, no dial tone and so on). Seeing the grocery store last night, it wouldn't surprise me if most did this anyway. And of course, they will blame the ensuing failure on Y2K. Can't win. :) *********************************************************** Andrea Abrahamsen (nee Di Lecce) (416) 935-6485 SMC Platform Specialist, Network Operations Rogers Cablesystems Inc. 1 Mount Pleasant Road, Toronto, M4Y 2Y5 ***********************************************************
On 31-Dec-1999 Andrea Abrahamsen (Di Lecce) wrote:
And of course, they will blame the ensuing failure on Y2K. Can't win. :)
Or is that year 19100? http://www.swissinfo.net/cgi/worldtime/clock.pl?Chatham,New=Zealand -- William X. Walsh <william@dso.net> DSo Networks http://dso.net/ Fax: 877-860-5412 or +1-559-851-9192
On Fri, Dec 31, 1999 at 04:02:47AM -0800, I Am Not An Isp wrote:
However, the phone system is almost completely useless. He has two phones in his office and cannot call one from the other. (Although he says they are on different exchanges, so they might not hit the same CO.) Dial tone is there, but after dialing numbers, just dead air. Which is weird, because when I called him it rang and he picked up, no static or anything. (We do have a switch in NZ, but we have to ride the local PTT to the destination phone.)
There was documented overloading in international calls in and out of New Zealand through CLEAR, Telecom NZ, Telstra NZ, Vodafone and Voyager. There was difficulty in seizing a line on Vodafone and Telecom NZ cell sites around central Auckland just after midnight, which is somewhat understandable considering there were several hundred thousand more potential cellphone subscribers in the area than is normal for a Friday night. There was, however, no widespread difficulty measured within NZ in obtaining dial tone, switching calls between local exchanges and tandems, or in interconnect between the main carriers.
This is causing unusual failure modes for some systems, especially ISDN routers which are common in .nz and .au.
ISDN routers are mainly only used in NZ where the calling and called station are attached to the same exchange, as this allows both stations to be combined in a centrex private dialling plan, which is billed on a flat-rate. Non-centrex ISDN is typically not used for nailed-up services here, since they incur a substantial per-minute charge from Telecom. Basic-rate services are available from other carriers, but Telecom is the only carrier with a widely-available copper access network. So although instability in a local exchange might give ISDN routers some connectivity problems, congestion on tandem trunks would be unlikely to impact them at all, at least, without roll-on instability problems. I believe Telecom NZ do use in-band R2 signalling from LXes which has been known to cause high LX processing load during periods of attack dialling, however, so it's possible that in individual cases ISDN centrex services might be affected. But again, no long-lasting or widespread problems have been reported.
So, overall, I would say that the world is probably not going to end. :)
It's still here as far as I can see. Mind you, I haven't been outside yet today :) Important lesson, I think, is to understand that individual isolated problems reported by individual operators do not necessarily signal the collapse of the PSTN. "The phone system is almost useless" is perhaps less accurate than "the one person I have talked to has reported some problems with his office handsets" :) Joe
"The phone system is almost useless" is perhaps less accurate than "the one person I have talked to has reported some problems with his office handsets" :) I think in the Australian experience "the mobile phone system is useless" was pretty accurate for at least an hour after midnight. Landlines coped much better. For the places yet to experience 1/1/00 I would suggest that if you need to keep in touch with your NOC (or whatever) then be near a landline and give the mobile a night off. Mark.
On Sat, Jan 01, 2000 at 11:54:42AM +1030, Mark Prior said:
"The phone system is almost useless" is perhaps less accurate than "the one person I have talked to has reported some problems with his office handsets" :)
I think in the Australian experience "the mobile phone system is useless" was pretty accurate for at least an hour after midnight. Landlines coped much better. For the places yet to experience 1/1/00 I would suggest that if you need to keep in touch with your NOC (or whatever) then be near a landline and give the mobile a night off.
Mark.
If you anticipate needing to be in touch with your NOC, then I'd reccomend dialing it up now, and leave it on speakerphone. -- Russell Briggs CyberCorp, Inc. russb@cybercorp.com
Or leave a landline open & muted some time before the roll-over and keep it that way until the normal means of communication (mobile, etc) are available again. P.S. We are seeing an expected drop of traffic over a normal Friday coinciding with various people heading off for their millenium celebrations. Far below normal/expected trouble calls. Deepak Jain AiNET On Sat, 1 Jan 2000, Mark Prior wrote:
"The phone system is almost useless" is perhaps less accurate than "the one person I have talked to has reported some problems with his office handsets" :)
I think in the Australian experience "the mobile phone system is useless" was pretty accurate for at least an hour after midnight. Landlines coped much better. For the places yet to experience 1/1/00 I would suggest that if you need to keep in touch with your NOC (or whatever) then be near a landline and give the mobile a night off.
Mark.
participants (8)
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Andrea Abrahamsen (Di Lecce) -
Deepak Jain -
I Am Not An Isp -
Joe Abley -
Joe Shaw -
Mark Prior -
Russell Briggs -
William X. Walsh