Phone Gear Was Long on Ills, Short on Any Distance

A malfunctioning Pacific Bell long-distance switching machine disrupted local and long-distance telephone calling Monday throughout San Diego and Imperial counties, a company spokesman said.

The machine malfunctioned about 9 a.m. and was working again shortly before noon, but a heavy load of calls continued to jam lines until late afternoon, Pacific Bell spokesman Tom McNaghten said. Officials expected the system to be back to normal by 6 a.m. today.

“The machine is 100%, but the carrying of calls still isn’t 100%,” McNaghten said. “We still have a heavy load condition on the machine . . . but as the day goes on, it’s progressively getting better.”

McNaghten said the malfunction could have affected all of the 1 million Pacific Bell customers in San Diego and Imperial counties--about 10% of all Pacific Bell customers. “It potentially affected hundreds of thousands (of calls), but we’re not sure,” he said.

The cause of the breakdown was unknown. McNaghten said it could have been a software problem or trouble with the electrical components of the machine, which handles all long-distance calls within San Diego and Imperial counties and most long-distance calls going outside the area.

Local service began to be affected about 11 a.m., when the number of long-distance calls going through local switching machines grew.

McNaghten made this analogy: “You’ve got a freeway, you’ve got an entrance ramp, and you can’t get on the entrance ramp because the long-distance freeway is backed up.”

The problem was heightened because 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. on Mondays is the “heaviest long-distance calling time” of the week and because customers who couldn’t get through kept trying to make their calls, McNaghten said.

The malfunction affected metropolitan San Diego most severely because of the large number of people in the area, but people in outlying areas may not have noticed a difference, McNaghten said.

The emergency 911 phone number apparently was not affected by the breakdown, a 911 supervisor said.