Due to a software bug, student phones went down early Thursday morning. Despite the best efforts of the Information and Technology (ITS) staff, in addition to help from Cisco technicians, phone service was not restored until late Saturday evening.According to Associate CIO/Director of Information Technology Services Anna Tomecka, the problem originated when University technicians attempted to update the software on model 7912 phones, the type installed in all residence rooms.

"We updated the software for the 7912 phones in order to remedy involuntary repetitive server problems and instances of erroneous behavior of the phones," she said.

According to Tomecka, the phones went down at approximately 6 a.m. on Thursday morning and service was fully restored Saturday night at about 10 p.m.

"Shortly after the update, an undocumented bug surfaced on a section of our network that has a particularly large number of phones, which is the region connected to the network through Admissions: Village, Ziv, Ridgewood, South Street, and Charles River Apartments," Tomecka said.

Tomecka informed students in an email which telecommunications services remained intact.

"Blue light, elevator, and entry phones in the affected area continue to function normally. Your computer network access is not affected by this outage," Tomecka wrote.

To remedy the situation, Cisco engineers told ITS to perform several tasks.

"ITS staff worked with Cisco support all throughout Saturday systematically rebooting all 4000 of the 7912 model phones with the updated software, one or few of them at a time," Tomecka said.

The University maintains policies to avoid problems such as this one, said Director of Telecommunications Mary Bromfield.

"In all new systems, there are unanticipated problems. ITS is committed to working around the clock until they are resolved," wrote Bromfield.