Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 27, 1995 TAG: 9509270074
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: TULSA, OKLA. LENGTH: Short
Space Com, a Tulsa-based satellite transmission service, had to reprogram the receivers manually, one by one. About 95 percent of the service was restored by the end of the workday, and the remainder was expected to be back by this morning.
Space Com has contracts with five of the 10 largest paging companies. Its biggest is with Pagenet, which has more than 6 million pagers across the country. Pagenet could not estimate how many of its customers were without service.
Al Stem, vice present and general manager of Space Com, said its receivers were turned off between 1 and 3 a.m. Tuesday when an operator giving the wrong command ordered the satellite to off-load all the addresses on one of two frequencies that serve pagers.
``Have we had problems? We've had major problems resulting from this outage,'' said Pagenet spokesman Gary Hartman in Bridgeport, Conn.
Paging Network of New York, which has 5 million customers nationwide, reported a 20 percent increase in complaints from customers Tuesday.
The biggest concern was in the medical field, where doctors are on 24-hour emergency stand-by. Pagenet and Seattle-based McCaw Communications said they immediately contacted hospitals, law enforcement agencies and other major customers to tell them their pagers were temporarily out of service.
by CNB