No “CONNECT_ACK” for you

This post is a deviation from my typical aviation topics towards a problem experienced in my work life. In my day job, I do not fly airplanes, I work as a Network Engineer where I work on a team that supports data and voice network infrastructure components for a company in town with a global presence. If you have said or heard the saying, “the network is slow”, I work on the team that handles redirects those problem reports daily.

This morning started off with a trouble report that outbound calls to our external conference bridge number were resulting in a “fast busy” after 2-3 minutes of being on a call. Of course there also happened to be a corporate wide “all managers” meeting this morning that was using the bridging service which increased the urgency greatly. Upon testing, it was easily reproducible. Sure enough, the call would go “fast busy” at about 2 minutes 53 seconds.

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