Internet companies brace themselves for Isabel

HURRICANE ISABEL was able to shut down the federal government and the DC Metro system before it even made landfall yesterday afternoon, but the region’s telephone and internet providers had already dialled up their emergency reserves to weather out the storm.

Verizon Communications, the Washington metropolitan area’s primary local phone and high-speed DSL Internet service provider, said technicians are checking back-up power systems to make sure that its telephone service continues in the event of a power outage.

The company is monitoring the network’s performance from its New York headquarters and three other regional centres outside of the storm’s path, and can reroute telephone and Internet traffic around any parts of the network that are damaged by Isabel.

Verizon also is preparing locally, putting in sandbags at facilities in low-lying areas and getting extra crews ready to repair downed power lines, said spokeswoman Sandy Arnette.

During the blackout that struck the US Northeast and Southern Canada, Verizon had 500 central offices on back-up power batteries and diesel generators. Those offices provided service to 20 million phone lines across five states.

Verizon would not disclose the money it spent on preparations.

Virginia-based WorldCom, whose UUNet subsidiary handles about half of the Internet’s traffic, has stationed teams of engineers and technicians just outside of areas where the hurricane is expected to hit hardest. The company also spent the past two days testing its back-up batteries and topping off its generators with fuel.

WorldCom is readying two 54-foot mobile trailers that can provide local and long-distance phone and Internet services in areas where communications networks are down. Engineers are standing by to redirect voice, Internet and data traffic should the storm damage portions of WorldCom’s network, spokeswoman Linda Laughlin said. Even though most of the company’s network relies on cables buried several feet below the ground, it is not uncommon to have those cables exposed and slashed by flooding and debris, she added. In 1996, the company’s subterranean network took a direct hit from Hurricane Fran, forcing technicians to reroute network traffic around the Eastern Seaboard.

“People don’t realise just how powerful wind and water can be,” said Laughlin. “Taken together, once those two start to gain momentum they can tear out many large components.”

Even if WorldCom suffers network damage, Internet traffic will likely remain unaffected in other parts of the world. The decentralised, resilient nature of the Internet prevents all but the most cataclysmic network attacks or natural disasters from doing more than posing minor inconveniences to online communications. This summer’s blackout, for example, barely affected Internet communications.

Long-distance and internet service provider AT&T’s large network centres are equipped with dozens of water-heater-sized batteries that kick in if the power goes out. Within minutes of an outage, diesel generators take over and each operations centre has enough fuel to run for days at a time, a company spokesman said.

In North Carolina, where Isabel hit early yesterday afternoon, AT&T has set up sandbags at about 30 offices. Another 10 critical AT&T network centres are already operating on backup power.

“Should there be a power failure, we don’t want any spikes or dips in power,” said AT&T spokesman Dave Johnson. “We’ve found it much more reliable to use our own power, and we’ll continue to do so until the storm safely passes.”