April
18 , 2003 MHC
Staff Put It All on the Line to Solve Phone Emergency
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Photo:
Lee Bouse
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You
can’t see it, touch it, or hear it, but you have probably
used it every day you have been on campus. It is MHC’s largest
telephone cable, an 1,100-foot bundle of wires (1,800 pairs of
them) that carries telephone service from Central Services Complex
to twenty-seven buildings on campus. When, in October, the cable
began failing, people across campus started experiencing static-filled
voice mail messages, misdirected phone calls, and no dial tone.
By February, 180 pairs of wires on the cable were failing every
week (about eighty phones), and it became clear that the cable
would have to be replaced. Staff from Facilities Management and
Card Services tackled the complex, time-consuming project during
MHC’s spring break.
“It was no spring break for us,” says Utilities Specialist
Russell Boudreau, who worked long days on the project alongside
Systems Manager Douglas Vanderpoel, and Electricians Supervisor
Kenneth McKenzie and his team. “But we feel really good
about what we accomplished,” Boudreau adds, noting that
by replacing the single large cable with multiple, smaller ones,
MHC has minimized the chance of future campuswide phone failure.
Mount Holyoke’s team began installation March 13. The first
step, called “pulling,” involved attaching a rope
to one end of a new 3,000-pound cable, then pulling that rope
(by hand or machine power) into one of the manholes that leads
to MHC’s web of electrical lines and communication conduits.
Underground, with help from RGS Communications of Leominster,
Massachusetts, MHC staff transferred the College’s phone
lines onto each new cable through a mating process called “splicing.”
Above ground, Douglas
Vanderpoel arranged for temporary, fiber-based phone systems,
ensuring that calls could come in and out of campus while the
cable was shut down for the transfer.
By March 26, new cables had been installed to support 1,200 lines
in Abbey Hall, Buckland Hall, North and South Rockefeller Halls,
Laboratory Theatre, Gorse Child Study Center, Skinner Hall, Clapp
Hall, Reese Psychology and Education Building, the Art Building,
Talcott Arboretum, Mary Lyon Hall, and five houses on Faculty
and College Streets. Service to the final 600 lines affected in
Williston Library, Dwight Hall, Shattuck Hall, Pearsons Hall,
Pearsons Annex, the President’s house, Newhall Center, Merrill
House, Williston Observatory, and the Francis Perkins House was
fully restored April 7.
ounter
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748
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