OUTAGE: network shutdown

As most folks are aware, Northpoint Communications is/has/will shutdown
its DSL network. The shutdown seems to be proceeding at different speeds
in different states. State PUC's don't seem to have a proceedure for
handling customers abandoned by a failing provider.

Originally, I was viewing this as a shutdown of an end network, hard on
the users of that network but not really an Internet service outage. But
AT&T's description of Northpoint as a wholesaler meant the shutdown affected
multiple ISPs. So I'm including northpoint's going out of business in
my tracking of outages because it affected multiple Internet networks.

I hear that it's going to affect 100,000+ end users.

Joe

We lost all NP end-user connectivity from coast to coast yesterday. It
appears that NP-to-ILEC trunking was cut off, though I don't have
confirmation on that. In any event, the outages (from our vantage
point) were staggered to occur at the end of the business day in each
timezone, which was rather considerate, considering the circumstances.

-brian