Page 12 - aruba-today-20210104

A12 Technology
Monday 4 January 2021

Nashville bombing spotlights vulnerable voice, data networks

By TALI ARBEL was "actually rather seam-
AP Technology Writer less," Mumford said, al-
The Christmas Day bomb- though the public couldn't
ing in downtown Nashville make calls to police pre-
led to phone and data ser- cincts. She said the AT&T
vice outages and disrup- service started coming
tions over hundreds of miles back Sunday and as of
in the southern U.S., raising Wednesday morning, over-
new concerns about the all service with cellphones,
vulnerability of U.S. com- internet and landlines was
munications. "about 90% up."
The blast seriously dam- The Parthenon, a museum
aged a key AT&T network replica of the Parthenon
facility, an important hub in Athens located about
that provides local wireless, three miles from the ex-
internet and video service plosion, still didn't have a
and connects to regional working phone four days
networks. Backup genera- after the blast. But its cred-
tors went down, which took it-card system came back
service out hours after the online Tuesday, said John
blast. A fire broke out and Holmes, an assistant direc-
forced an evacuation. The tor of Metro Parks, the mu-
building flooded, with more seum's owner. During the
than three feet of water lat- In this Dec. 29, 2020 file photo, debris remains on the sidewalk in front of buildings damaged in a weekend, the museum was
er pumped out of the base- Christmas Day explosion in Nashville, Tenn. cash-only, although it let
ment; AT&T said there was Associated Press in people without cash for
still water on the second pany uses AT&T equipment was part of an active crime able to get some services free.
floor as of Monday. for moving customer data scene, which complicated up and running within 24 to It's not as if the physical vul-
The immediate repercus- from towers to the T-Mobile AT&T workers' access. 48 hours of a catastrophic nerability of communica-
sions were surprisingly wide- network. "We are all too dependent blast in this case is pretty tions networks comes as a
spread. AT&T customers lost "People didn't even real- on phone, cell phone, TV amazing," Fontes said. surprise. Natural disasters
service — phones, internet ize their dependencies and internet to have out- Local authorities turned to like hurricanes frequently
or video — across large until it failed," said Doug ages for any reason," Rep. social media on Christmas wipe out service as the
parts of Tennessee, Ken- Schmidt, a Vanderbilt Uni- Jim Cooper, the Demo- Day, posting on Facebook power goes out and wind,
tucky and Alabama. There versity computer science crat who represents Nash- and Twitter that 911 was water or fire damage in-
were 911 centers in the professor. "I don't think any- ville in Congress, said in down and trying to reas- frastructure. Recovery can
region that couldn't take one recognized the crucial an emailed statement sure residents by offering take days, weeks or even
calls; others didn't receive role that particular building Wednesday. He said the other numbers to call. A longer. Hurricane Maria left
crucial data associated played" in the region's tele- U.S. "needs to harden our Facebook page for Mor- Puerto Rico in a near com-
with callers, such as their com infrastructure, he said. telecom facilities so we gan County 911 in northern munications blackout with
locations. The Nashville po- The explosion, which took have greater redundancy Alabama said Saturday destroyed telephone poles,
lice department's phones place in the heart of the and reliability" and called that Alabama 911 centers cell towers and power lines.
and internet failed. Stores Nashville's historic down- for congressional hearings were up and running but Six months later there were
went cash-only. town, killed the bomber, on reducing telecom vul- advised AT&T customers still areas without service.
At some hospitals, electron- injured several people and nerabilities. with issues to try calling via Software bugs and equip-
ic medical records, internet damaged dozens of build- The impact on emergency internet, and to go to the ment failures have also
service or phones stopped ings. Federal officials are in- services may have raised local police or fire station caused widespread prob-
working. The Nashville air- vestigating the motive and the most serious flags. At for help if they couldn't get lems. A December 2018
port halted flights for about haven't said whether the one point, roughly a hun- through. CenturyLink outage lasted
three hours on Christmas. AT&T building was specifi- dred 911 centers had ser- The Nashville police de- for more than a day and
Rival carrier T-Mobile also cally targeted. vice problems in Tennes- partment uses the FirstNet disrupted 911 calls in over
had service issues as far AT&T said 96% of its wire- see alone, said Brian Fon- system built by AT&T, which two dozen states and af-
away as Atlanta, 250 miles less network was restored tes, head of the National the carrier boasts can pro- fected as many as 22 mil-
away, because the com- Sunday. As of Monday Emergency Number Asso- vide "fast, highly reliable lion people. That included
evening, AT&T said "near- ciation. A 911 call center interoperable communi- blocked calls for Verizon
ly all services" were back should still be operational cations" in emergencies customers and busy signals
up. On Wednesday, it was even if there is damage and that is meant to pri- for Comcast customers,
"activating the last of the to a phone company's oritize first responders when which both used Centu-
remaining wireline equip- hub, said David Turetsky, networks are stressed. But ryLink's network.
ment." a lecturer at the University problems emerged around "Avoiding single points of
AT&T said it sent temporary at Albany and a former midday Friday, said spokes- failure is vital for any num-
cell towers to help in af- public safety official at the person Kristin Mumford. The ber of reasons, whether
Sand Logic fected areas and rerouted Federal Communications department had to turn to it has to do with physical
traffic to other facilities as it Commission. If multiple call a backup provider, Centu- damage, human error,
The famous Divi Divi tree is
worked to restore power to centers were out of service ryLink, for its landlines and hostile action or any of the
actually called Watapana. They
the Nashville building . But for several days, "that is of internet at headquarters above," Turetsky said. "We
all point SouthWest due to the
trade winds. not all traffic can be rerout- concern," he said. and precincts and ob- need our networks to be
ed, spokesperson Jim Greer Cooper and experts like tained loaner cellphones resilient regardless of earth-
The tree works just like a
The tree works just like a
said, and there was physi- Fontes also gave AT&T and mobile hotspots from quake, tornado, terrorist,
compass. So, when you’re lost
cal equipment that had to credit for their work on re- Verizon.
look for one they are pointing to cyber attacker or other
the highrise hotels area. be fixed in a building that instating services. "To be The transition to backups threat."q