|
sponsored by
|
|
SPONSORED LINKS |
Monday, January 12, 2009Businesses can avoid costly communications interruptions by having backup, observers sayMore than one provider should be usedWhen a company's phone and data lines go down, the costs can be staggering. In some cases, losses can reach tens of thousands of dollars after just a few hours of interrupted service. But some local businesspeople and observers say there are ways to reduce the odds of costly outages. On Dec. 10, an underground line rupture left some 60,000 Embarq customers without service and highlighted the need for backup systems. A contractor installing sewer lines downtown accidentally cutting through Embarq's cables, causing the outage,.
Other area businesses say they have experienced something similar to the Embarq outage. Allegiant Airlines, which has four locations in Las Vegas, experienced a communications outage a year and a half ago that delayed flights and cost thousands of dollars, said Russ Ketchum, the flier's vice president of technology. The incident, which Ketchum believes was caused by accidentally cut underground lines, made company officials re-evaluate their backup strategies. "During that outage, we were completely without service," he said. "We couldn't transmit flight data ... and there are specific regulations with the (Federal Aviation Administration) that you have to submit flight data before take off." Manual data submissions are possible, but time-consuming, so flights were delayed, Ketchum recalled. Stranded passengers needed accommodations; vouchers were offered to help make up for the fliers' inconvenience. All that meant many dollars lost for Allegiant. "It can be upwards of thousands, or even tens of thousands of dollars, per hour, if we are grounded," he said. After the outage, Allegiant began a new plan for "redundancy," or the ability to switch to a backup channel. The airline switched to local wireless carrier 1Velocity for its Internet and data service. 1Velocity uses microwave technology instead of underground cables to transmit over a spectrum of devices. Cox Communications is Allegiant's primary phone carrier, and an extensive backup system includes 1Velocity, Embarq and TelePacific as backup for voice. Cox backs up the data lines. Construction mishaps aren't the only things causing outages; Mother Nature can wreak havoc, too. Therefore, businesses need to prepare for a worst-case scenario, said Robert Drobish, an information technology consultant with his own company, Pinnacle Technology. Drobish, who works from Las Vegas, has consulted for companies around the world. He went to assess the damage for a major hotel-casino and racetrack on the Gulf Coast in 2005, after Hurricane Rita hit. Drobish is still surprised by a lack of preparedness he saw at the resort, which he asked not to be identified because of a confidentiality agreement he had. Down lines caused the resort, on the coast between New Orleans and Houston, to lose regular phone and data service for more than a week. Service interruptions aren't unusual after a major hurricane, but the outage at the resort was surprising, he said. The resort had the backup communications equipment to restore service quickly, he said, but officials failed to find or use most of it. "It had a cable in the ground and a dish satellite on its deck," Drobish recalled. "They could have had communications, but they didn't know. The horse stables had phones, but the phone lines had blown down." The backup ground cables had been cut by accident before, but the resort's operators had neither asked where its phone lines were buried nor repaired them before Rita hit, Drobish said. "They could have had service ... halfway across the property, there was an extra phone line that was cut, and they said, 'We'll worry about it later.' And four or five years later, they forgot about it." Hurricane Rita turned routine inefficiency and procrastination into a costly mistake. The company spent extra time and money tracking down its missing workers because it couldn't call them; the resort was left with one makeshift phone that went in and out of service. Scott Seegmiller wants to ensure his Las Vegas-based apartment management company avoids the crisis that hamstrung the Gulf Coast resort. He is chief financial officer for Westcorp, which manages more than 22,000 apartment units in 69 communities around the country. Of those, 350 are in the Las Vegas Valley. He uses 1Velocity for Internet in his office and Cox for data in his local apartment communities. His phone service is through XO Communications and backed up by cell phones. "Let's say the outage affected my office," he said of his local headquarters. "That is 35 people that do not have the ability to communicate with customers from the office." In the past, employees were sent home to work from their own computers. Seegmiller now has redundancy. Drobish advises against using a primary and backup carrier that both have lines in the same place. Diversifying your communications technology by having a traditional phone carrier or cable company, along with a wireless or satellite user, he said, increases the odds of one channel staying open. When building redundancy, he said, knowledge is power. "Ask the questions, 'Where is my stuff?' 'Where is the physical line?' 'Is it DSL (digital subscriber line), fiber or copper?'" he said. "Somebody had to pay for putting it in the ground, and that party should ask." Finally, he said, make sure this communications information is passed to other company officials so it doesn't leave when employees do. That's likely what happened to that Gulf Coast's hurricane damaged-casino, Drobish said. "The satellite was probably somebody's pet project," he said. "And when that person left, they just stopped using it." Contact reporter Valerie Miller at vmiller@lvbusinesspress.com or 702-387-5286. |
 | |||||
|
|
|
|||
| |||||
Copyright © 2010, Las Vegas Business Press | Privacy Policy