WVA Phone Outage Hits Hospitals, 911 Centers

By the Betanews Staff | Published July 10, 2007, 10:44 AM

A massive telephone service outage is affecting thousands in West Virginia, after FiberNet had a network failure that affected both its primary and backup systems. The problem began at 5:30am and continues to persist five hours later. Hospitals, fire departments, businesses and homes are affected.

According to individuals in the area, West Virginia's capital of Charleston is affected including the city's main hospital, along with Wirt, Wood, Mingo and Mercer counties. 911 call centers in Brooke and Hancock counties are also having problems. "Although no estimated time to repair is available at this point, FiberNet is working diligently to resolve this problem just as quickly as possible," the company said in a statement on its Web site.

Comments

View comments by with a score of at least

We here at One Link Llc helped a lot of Fibernet's clients during the outage and if Fibernet would of asked we could of helped them as well. We are a true backup service provider. http://onelinkllc.com and ofcourse our infrastructure is sound and crosses many LATA's

Score: 0

|

WE must remember as customers of fibernet that we are lucky to have an alternative to verizon and other companies that create monopolies. Think about our gas and electric bills, how outrageous our rates become because WE DONT HAVE AN ALTERNATIVE. If we show verizon that they will get all of our business, the rates will go up, as fibernets rates are much LOWER than verizons. This 24 hr outage means nothing to me when I keep perspective of my outrageousd gas and electric bills and how if my phone bill becomes that way, i would not beable to afford it.

Score: 0

|

This 24 hr outage means nothing to me

...until you need to contact emergency services for anything.

Score: 0

|

Fibernet handles nearly all of Verizon's infrastructure work in WV. Verizon has a stranglehold on this state thanks to the numerous politicians in their pocket. With their monopoly guaranteed they have little incentive to upgrade the infrastructure or improve services. Before this is over we'll probably find out that this outage, like so many recent ones, was due to people stealing telephone lines for the copper (yeah, its that bad here). An excessive number of potential failure points in both the telephone and power networks are probably one reason that high-tech businesses won't locate here.

Score: 0

|

I am amazed how such a large company --telecommunications no less-- could have an outage lasting so long (after 2:30pm now).
Unbelievable.

Score: 0

|

Redundancy is a must in the network/telco world. I wonder if any one has lost a life due to this affecting hospitals and 911 facilities. I can't believe this is an acceptable business practice for such a necessary utility.

Score: 0

|

I live in the area and as far as I know there were no lives lost due to this outage, but this was a very wide area outage.. hundreds of miles so its very likely if there was one I wouldn't have heard.. yet anyway.

Score: 0

|

Hey, here's a thought:

Let's put all of our communications (emergency, personal, data) in the hands of one company. That'd be great. It's not like we'd ever need a secondary carrier just in case our main carrier suffers a massive outage. That kind of thing never happens...

...right?

Score: 0

|

Single Point of Failure

Score: 0

|

At least they won't have to try and figure out which company is to blame for the outage...

Score: 0

|

true that.

Score: 0

|

Breakthrough: AMD and Intel settle antitrust dispute, reach new cross-license agreement

UPDATED Only exclusionary business practices, not some rebates, may be covered by a new agreement on Intel's future business conduct.

Windows Marketplace for Mobile now available in browser, iTunes' App Store still not

You can now check out what Windows Marketplace for Mobile has to offer without a Windows Phone.

Microsoft damage control after marketer claims Win7 inspired by Mac

Have you ever said anything you wish you could take back? Ever? No? Not even once? Well then, you won't sympathize with a mid-level Microsoft manager today.

Facebook for iPhone developer goes from Apple supporter to 'I quit!' in 3 months

Fed up with Apple's App Store policies, the developer of Facebook for iPhone has bailed on the iPhone.

Google acquires Gizmo5, builds IP telephony portfolio

Google Voice today confirmed rumors that it would acquire IP telephony company Gizmo5

'A pivot from war to peace:' The AMD + Intel armistice, in their own words

An extraordinary day in technology history is recognized by two long-time rivals that mutually decided it's futile to fight anyplace else except the marketplace.

PS3, Xbox to soon get Twitter, Facebook integration

Both Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3 will integrate with Facebook in the near future.

The iTunes App Store at 100,000: Can we stop counting, already?

Carmi Levy | Wide Angle Zoom: Is a six-digit number truly reflective of a healthy applications ecosystem? Or is it another type of bloat?

Analysis: The end of business-by-litigation?

The AMD v. Intel case ended neither with a bang nor a whimper, but almost with a song. Is it catchy enough for the rest of the PC world to sing in perfect harmony?

The agreement: Intel and AMD 'wipe the slate clean'

As the Securities and Exchange Commission document shows, AMD did indeed make some compromises in favor of Intel, especially with regard to conduct.

EC still holds Intel accountable even after AMD settlement

Though the future of relations between AMD and Intel may be peaceful now, the EC believes Intel may still owe restitution for its past conduct.