Well Steven, an outage involving three DS-3s would likely be related
> to an OC-3 failure (an OC-3 at ~155 megabits/second will carry three
> DS-3s or just over 2,000 voice channels). I'd guess one of two
> failure types caused your emotional trauma: Traditional "back hoe
> fade" or an OC-3 to DS-3 mux went on "time out" for a while.
A backhoe undoubtedly being operated by Backhoe Bob. Apparently at a recent gathering of IT folks involved with the Help America Vote Act this was a common refrain.