| Phone and Data Circuit Outages:
Complaint to the FCC October 3, 2006 In recent years the Upper Peninsula, and the Copper Country in particular, have suffered frequent interruptions to voice and data services provided by the giant telecommunications companies that control the regional infrastructure. These interruptions often last for the better part of a day. The news reports typically tell of causes such as "a beaver chewing through cables near Boston Pond", or "a backhoe breaking wires near Michigamme", or "an accidental fiber cut near Green Bay". These outages point out the need for "circular redundancy" in major circuits to the region. Such interruptions create hardships for both residential and commercial customers. Cell phone companies and Internet carriers depend on these circuits for their users. Without redundancy in major control circuits to the region, communications are vulnerable to massive failure with the loss of a single control point. As a matter of public safety and the economic well-being of users, the monopolies that provide underlying connectivity must be held accountable to the public for an alternate path to the outside world. Pasty.NET encourages residents of the Copper Country to
file a complaint
with the FCC whenever day-long outages occur, such as the outage on
October 2, 2006 which lasted from 12 noon to 11:15pm. General complaints
may be filed online, by the postal service, by email or fax. The
following is a sample, an actual complaint filed by email to fccinfo@fcc.gov:
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