Washington-based MCI Communications Corp has been describing the design of the 45m mile telecommunications network it is to build for the US Federal Aviation Administration, and claims that it not only meets the requirement of neing 99.999% failure proof, but is so good that it is the shape of networks to come, reports Reuters writer Barbara Grady. MCI won the $558m contract to build the network in March, after the Federal Aviation Administration decided that it did need its own network after all – that decision was prompted by that failed switching centre on Broadway when the batteries ran out and phone service went out all over the New York area, causing chaos as planes couldn’t land at La Guardia Airport. MCI won the contract in competition with AT&T Co, which was hardly going to win after a failure that turned out to be the result of gross incompetence. Reliability in MCI’s design is achieved by duplication to provide alternate transmission routes, switching and monitoring throughout. MCI said it is guaranteeing that its network, with software that detects and automatically reroutes calls, will never be down for more than 30 seconds, as the software cuts in and the rerouting occurs. MCI plans to use the Leased Interfacility National Air Space Communications System, LINCS, network as a model for other networks: We believe LINCS will be the blueprint for networks of the future, said Gerry Edgerton, vice-president of government systems at the company. In a given day, the FAA handles 200,000 flight take-offs and landings, and at peak times monitors 6,000 aircraft at once in the skies above the US. It relies on communications among pilots, control towers, airlines, and FAA air route traffic control centres to schedule and clear those take-offs and landings, some of it via terrestrial links hence LINCS. MCI said it will dedicate some excess capacity on its existing 1,400m circuit-mile transmission system to the FAA network, and to duplicate transmission it will use fibre optic transmission and terrestrial microwave as alternate routes. The multiplexors in its switches will be completely dedicated to the FAA network. Newbridge Networks Corp builds the multiplexors used in the system.
