On Saturday morning (2/1) a problem at the Verizon central office caused
the college to lose its data communications link to CUNY and beyond.  As a
result, Blackboard, e-mail, the college's websites, and other online
services were unavailable from off-campus until approximately 3:00 p.m.
Sunday.  Voice communications were also affected briefly on Sunday
morning.

Verizon had great difficulty diagnosing and correcting the problem at
their end.  I am grateful to the BCTC staff members who worked over the
weekend to ensure that Verizon handled the situation as a high priority.

This is a good opportunity to introduce another means of obtaining
information about the status of the college’s IT systems.  When the BCTC’s
network status web page is not available (such as this past weekend), you
can get current information from a telephone recording at 646-312-BCTC.
In addition to hearing the status of voice and data networks, the line
allows you to connect directly to the help desk during its normal hours of
operation if you need to report a problem.


Arthur Downing
Acting Assistant Vice President for Information Technology/CIO
Professor and Chief Librarian
Baruch College
1 Bernard Baruch Way / Box H-0520
New York, NY 10010
v: (646) 312-1026     f: (212) 802-2393
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