Katrina: update on BellSouth network status

Here's an update from telecom provider BellSouth on network status, post-Katrina. About 1.03 million lines (54%) are impacted (down?) in Louisiana, 438,000 in Mississippi (40%), and 93,000 in Alabama (4%). Repairs are still not possible throughout much of the nearly 100,000 square mile region impacted by the disaster. Link (via Broadband Reports)

Reader comment: A BB reader who asks to remain anonymous says,

This has no URL, it was called in to our paper by a reliable BellSouth rep. There is a possibility - it's just that right now - that damage to the telecom infrastructure caused by Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi and the flooding in New Orleans, combined with added stress on the system, may bring down BellSouth as a whole, shutting down phone and other BellSouth telecom service from Texas to the East Coast. Nothing may happen, and I don't want to start a panic. But if you find that your landline phone or Internet starts falling apart -- if you're here, dialing out, and if you're outside of BellSouth's service area, calling into it - that would be why.

Reader comment: Adam Cabe says,

The update from the anonymous source who stated that infrastructure damage may "bring down BellSouth as a whole, shutting down phone and other BellSouth telecom service from Texas to the East Coast" is absolutely rubbish.

While I don't speak in an official capacity for BellSouth I do work closely enough with the IP side of our network to tell you that this is just impossible. We pop out to Level3 in a dozen different redundant places. Ditto the frame circuits that move voice traffic.

This weekend I spoke with someone personally who was provisioning data circuits for the Red Cross in one of the disaster afflicted areas. Modern networks do not fail when parts of them fall off the map - they route around the damage. In fact, this damage is being repaired around the clock. Please squelch this verifiably false rumor now.