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In the mid-1980s, I was witness to an incident where an upgrade to the SS7 software used in AT&T's long distance network took most of North America's long distance service down hard for more than twenty-four hours. It was then that I began formulating what came to be called Pinkston's Law: MOST OUTAGES BEGIN AS UPGRADES

Over the years since, I have seen this happen so often that whenever I hear of a major telecom or data service outage, my first thought is, "Must have been an upgrade. Pinkston's Law." In the vast majority of cases it turns out that that's exactly what it was! So, at the urging of those closest to me, I've started this blog to chronicle the occurrences of Pinkston's law whenever I hear of them.

Friday, December 25, 2009

Batelco (Bahrain) Cellular Network Outage: May 19-20, 2007


  • Length of outage: Unknown

  • Number of people affected: Unknown, up to 600,000 possible
Link to the original news story, which quotes the Gulf Daily News:
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/23887.php
The outage caused a bit of outrage:
An influential business source told the newspaper that "a company with nearly BD100 million net profit should have a back-up service because what happened affected the communications of thousands of mobile owners. This is not acceptable nowadays," he said
The outage was blamed on "migration to a New Generation Network (NGN)." I wonder how one says Pinkston's Law in the local language...
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