On Wed, 11 April 2001, John Todd wrote:

From a terrestrial perspective, the recent solar flare activity would have a much more noticeable effect on circuits that have long, inductive (copper) loops that collect those pesky electron charges. In North America, I imagine that this is mostly local loop issues, since the majority (everything?) that is of any appreciable distance is fiber. It is perhaps the case that the Canadians and Alaskans may see more of an issue even on their short local loops, since the more polar segments of the Earth bear the brunt of the storms (if I recall my astronomy courses correctly.)

April 2, 2001 Sol Solar flare April 3, 2001 Phoenix, AZ Under Investigation (Qwest) April 3, 2001 Elkton, MD Fiber Cut (ATT) April 3, 2001 Columbus, GA Under Investigation (Bellsouth) April 4, 2001 Northeastern US Power supply (Sprint) April 5, 2001 Dullas, VA Power supply (AOL/TW) April 6, 2001 Joilet, IL Power supply (Ameritech/SBC) April 6, 2001 Alamagorda, NM Fiber cut (Qwest) April 6, 2001 Jacksonville, FL Under investigation (Bell South) April 8, 2001 Loredo, TX Power supply (Southwestern Bell) Its probably not statistically significant, but the hit on power supplies after the recent solar flare did catch my eye. I don't recall a similar rise occuring in the past. But I can't compare the number of power supply problems to the same period last year because ATIS Network Reliability Steering Committee has removed all of its public reports from its free portion of the web site, and I don't really want to spend $50 to buy a copy.