Chasing Gremlins Internet Service Providers Cope With Technical Glitches

Oh, what a tangled web.

More than 30 million Americans now use the Internet, a three-fold increase in just the last year.

In Spokane, as many as 50,000 users may be online, catching up on everything from pitch-by-pitch recounts of Mariners games to the status of legislation in Olympia.

All of that information flows through a telecommunications network designed to handle conversations that average six minutes in length. Internet calls, however, average several times that long.

When America On Line offered subscribers a $19.95 per month flat rate for unlimited service in December, it was like dropping a B-52 into a spider’s web.

Frustrated subscribers snarled circuits in cities like Seattle for hours, impeding regular phone traffic as well as Internet use.

Internet providers deny they created the problem. Instead, they say US West Communications and GTE failed to anticipate demand.

Some Spokane Internet service providers, or ISPs, stopped signing up new customers because, they said, US West was not providing enough circuits to handle incoming calls.

Jim Moody, president of one local ISP, Interlink Internet Services, said that by early February hundreds of calls were not getting past a US West switch in the basement of the U.S. Bank Building.

Many other calls were terminated arbitrarily, he said, adding, “We thought it was us.”

His employees were doing nothing but responding to complaints, which took them away from more lucrative work like designing and maintaining web pages.

A few blocks away, Internet On-Ramp Inc. had other problems.

Owner Dave Schmidt said he ordered more lines from US West in November through Nextlink, one of two alternative providers of telephone service in Spokane.

Nextlink has its own fiber-optic system, but also leases lines from US West.

Schmidt said US West gradually scaled back his order until January, when he was told nothing more was available. On Jan. 21, the middle of the busiest month of the year - because many families buy computers for Christmas - he stopped taking new customers.

“All that checking we did was worthless,” Schmidt said.

Frustrated ISP owners finally met Feb. 7 with Nextlink, which leases the room in the U.S. Bank Building where most ISPs have placed their equipment. The company also leases the lines that bring incoming calls from US West’s basement switch into the room.

US West District Manager Annette Miller also was invited. “There was nothing to indicate to US West there was even a problem,” she said, adding, the ISPs were not submitting trouble reports and call terminations at its switch did not look out of the ordinary.

Moody said the service providers - there are at least 19 in Spokane - are so competitive they had not shared notes prior to the meeting. Many thought they were savvy enough to solve their own problems, he said. But meeting participants quickly realized the goblins were US West’s equipment, not their own.

Fortunately, said Miller, short-term solutions were relatively simple.

Another trunk line now joins the basement switch to US West’s central office on West Second. And switch software that was sabotaging calls has been reprogrammed.

“There are other ways to design service into that building,” Miller added.

Moody said customer calls have dropped back to normal levels. “We’re in a lot better shape than we were,” he said, although the switch still drops some calls.

Besides fixing the immediate problem, he said, the meeting also encouraged the ISPs to form a local trade association to make sure common problems are identified sooner. Their first meeting was Thursday.

And US West, which in the past had balked at adding new circuitry until orders were in hand, has agreed to incorporate ISP traffic forecasts in its planning.

“It’s really going to get better,” Moody said.

Jim Barker is also enthused. His company, Washington SuperNet, subsisted on just 12 lines at its old location at 10th and Sherman.

Told he could get no more lines unless he relocated to the U.S. Bank Building, Barker moved, and business has taken off. “I’ve had no problem,” he said. “I put 200 lines in in the last two weeks.”

Barker said most service glitches now originate in Seattle, where his carrier delivers his calls to one of several network access points - the primary hubs for Internet traffic in the U.S. (See graphic.)

“If somebody closes their service, we’ll get the first line,” he said.

Schmidt remains miffed. A trunk line added by US West last week will handle many of his backlogged orders, and another line is on order. But he had to pay a premium to get the new lines, and Schmidt says he will no longer depend on US West.

Barker, who has been in the Internet business 10 years, said part of the problem in Spokane is infighting as each company tries to improve its position. “They’re just not cooperating,” he said.

Nextlink Washington President Greg Green said the company will work with US West on the short-term fixes for ISP problems, but won’t stop there. “We think we can provide a better service by doing this on our own,” he said.

Nextlink has already applied for a prefix that will be devoted exclusively to Internet traffic, he said, and tariffs could be filed with the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission as soon as next week.

The service could be in place by the end of the month.

“This is the beauty of telecommunications, of deregulation,” Green said.

Mitzi Sachs, GST Telecom Northwest vice president and general manager in Spokane, said her company will have a central office switch operational in the Washington Mutual Building by early June.

Meanwhile, the company has started serving Internet traffic, including Barker’s, using a small switch designed for transmitting data, not voices, she said.

Sachs said GST eventually will offer Internet connections in bulk to smaller ISPs as well as institutional users.

While the providers and their carriers fight it out in - and under - the streets, state officials are beginning to confront the snarl of potential regulatory issues.

Two weeks ago, the Senate Energy and Utilities Committee held a hearing on Internet issues. Chairman Bill Finkbeiner, R-Redmond, said US West advocated eliminating a state ban on charging for telephone line use by the minute.

Company spokesmen said measured service would discourage indiscriminate use of the Internet.

But Finkbeiner said the Legislature will renew the ban, which expires July 1, 1998, if lawmakers don’t act.

He said 15 percent of US West circuits are in Washington, and the state generates 15 percent of company revenues. The company recently reported its best fourth-quarter earnings in years, he noted. “They’ve got to be making that money somewhere.”

Spokane Valley Rep. Larry Crouse, who chairs the House Energy and Utilities Committee, said it’s too early for the state to intercede in the Internet market.

Instead, legislative leaders may form a task force to look at Internet issues as well as other telecommunication matters.

“We have more questions than we have answers,” Crouse said.

“It’s a very important industry and there are a lot of dollars involved,” added William Gillis, a member of the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission.

Regulators thought the year-old federal Telecommunications Act would have resolved many of the issues that are confounding progress toward wide-open competition, he said.

Until the rules are clear, Gillis said, companies will be reluctant to make the investments necessary to upgrade their networks.

“It’s a matter of getting the right technological fix in place,” he said.

The commission plans to meet with the ISPs and telephone companies soon to explore ways to resolve problems that have split the industry.

“We’re moving into a very technical world very rapidly,” said Miller of US West. “We need to get a better understanding of their business.”

“We just have to figure out how to engineer the product so it’s of benefit to everyone,” said Nextlink’s Green. “The Internet is not done.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 3 Graphics: 1. Connecting to the internet 2. Spokane area Internet providers 3. Traveling cyberspace