Worries about an old friend

Has the ax finally fallen, even before the big outage/upgrade?  Has hraunfoss gone the way of the dodo?  If you know what I'm talking about, you are a true E-Rate geek.  If you don't, hraunfoss.fcc.gov is the name of the FCC server that holds (held?) appeal decisions.

Just today I noticed that my links to documents on hraunfoss give me a 404 error (page not found).  I have feared the disappearance of hraunfoss since 2010.  We went through a "transitions.fcc.gov" phase, and a flirtation with "www.fcc.gov/document/...."  Could the reign of hraunfoss finally be over?

One encouraging sign: the FCC links are all broken, too.  Try going to the list of 2011 WCB appeal decisions; it looks like 800some broken links.  It wouldn't be the fist time that hraunfoss had trouble getting started on a Monday.

In the short term, you can get at the documents by editing the URL: take out "http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov" and put in "https://apps.fcc.gov" at the start of the Web address.  Note that you have to put an "s" after "http."  Perhaps that will be hraunfoss' demise: everybody's moving to https, and as long as you're going to have to change every URL....

FCC going dark

Check out this announcement: from Sept. 2nd to Sept. 8th, "most Commission resources normally accessible through the Commission’s web site,including access to all electronic filing systems and electronic dockets, will be inaccessible.... The Commission’s web site will remain available, but with reduced content and limited search capabilities. ... FCC telephones will work but voicemail will not, and most Commission staff will not have access to e-mail."

As a practical matter, not really a big deal, since they're giving automatic extensions of filings due during that time.  And there's always snail mail....

But I'm dismayed: it's going to be a really uphill slog to explain that redundant connections are cost-efficient to an organization that knowingly crashes itself for a whole week.