Manhattan ISP CEO Asks for Help

As lights went out in Central Offices and switching farms in Southern Manhattan, one ISP CEO called for ISPs to reach out and help each other serve customers.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Associate Editor [September 13, 2001]

[New York, 6 P.M. EST] UPDATE: inch.com issued the following bulletin:

Thanks to our telephone provider, Focal, and a neighbor of theirs in the building, GlobalNAPS, we have our dial-up service back on-line.

A GlobalNAPS employee was let in to the facility by Focal and was able to power-cycle our router, which restored connectivity to the outside world.

That said, the NYC telephone system is very congested. Please keep your dialup use to a minimum so that the phone network can remain open for emergency communications.

Internet Channel CEO Hal Eisenstein thanked Qwest for their assistance, "they generously offered to help out by providing dial-up and colocation services....basically anything that was needed at no cost and with no thought other then just helping out."

Eisenstein reiterated his offer of support to other ISPs, "Now that we're secure (for the time being) I'd like to reiterate my offer to other companies (not just ISPs) in need...whatever we can do to help we'll do... Thanks again."

[New York, 1 P.M. EST] Problems at 32 Old Slip were affecting Internet service across Manhattan. Many ISPs, unable to work with Verizon, obtain Internet access through the reseller Focal Communications, whose offices are at the South end of Manhattan.

Assessing the situation from the offices a few blocks north of where the twin towers once stood, Hal Eisenstein, Internet Channel chief executive officer, said this is a crisis situation.

"The Focal switch is up, but the building was evacuated and we have no dialup service through that switch," Eisenstein said. "We and other Manhattan-based ISPs need modem ports. If an area ISP has free ports, we'd like to use them. It would take about thirty minutes of tech guys talking to each other to set up RADIUS authentication."

Eisenstein also offered assistance, asking that ISPs combine their efforts to keep critical systems alive.

"I have colo space at 180 Varick, with bandwidth and power," Eisenstein offered. "If other Manhattan ISPs need to set up mail servers or domain name servers, we can give them space. We also have desk space we can offer. It's a crisis and we have to stick together."

Across southern Manhattan, FEMA was delivering fuel to Internet businesses in an effort to keep gas-powered generators up an running. But because of the problems at 32 Old Slip, many ISPs were unable to provide dialup service to their customers at all.

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Outside of the evacuated area, from offices on 18th Street, Ely, a technician at Panix, one of the oldest ISPs in the world, said they were experiencing a crisis situation typical of Manhattan-based ISPs at the moment.

"Dialup is out but it's coming back," Ely said. "We get our broadband and other connections from Focal and they're in the disaster area."

Ely explained that even those ISPs that did not have offices near the World Trade Center depend on connections based in or near the former twin towers locale.

"Focal has had no power since yesterday and their engineers are not allowed in," Ely said. "The temperature in there is close to 105°F. We don't know whether the air conditioning system is down or if the ducts are clogged with debris."

Another ISP, Bway.net, was even closer to the towers. Staff could not be reached, but the company website had this note:

"As many of you know, our offices are in downtown Manhattan at the corner of Broadway and Grand. Due to FEMA control of the city we are not being allowed into our offices but do have our staff working remotely. Please note that the telephone problems (related to reaching our office and perhaps the modems) are the result of congestion on the public switched telephone network and in most cases, the calls are not even reaching our equipment, If you do reach our modems, they are up, as are our servers. All we can ask is for your patience, and if you are able to provide feedback on the error messages we can pass them along to the various telephone companies. Please send that info to tech@bway.net. "

Reached for comment, a Focal representative said they withstood the initial destruction better than Verizon.

"We were fine through the collapse of towers one and two, but when tower seven collapsed, we lost all of the connectivity we have through Verizon, and then the energy grid for lower Manhattan was turned off, so the main switch went down, and our backup, which runs on fuel, was turned on.

"We have enough fuel for the weekend. We think we're better off than Verizon because there was no direct damage to our facility. Unfortunately, we are operating without the redundancy we usually supply our customers. We ask that everyone understand that our first priority has to be our hospital customers."

Verizon reported that a major switching center at 140 West Street was adjacent to the disaster area. It contains four call-processing computers serving 200,000 access lines and the equivalent of 3 million data circuits in lower Manhattan. Verizon was attempting to bypass the West Street facility but service was affected.

It's been reported, but not verified, that two other Verizon Central Offices were destroyed in the building collapses.

Although Verizon supplies most of the DSL access in Manhattan, it appears that only Verizon DSL is currently operating. Verizon customer support may not be assisting customers who have Verizon DSL through America Online or EarthLink.

—End