Problems with the Ohio State voice mail system left students and faculty unable to leave voice mails on OSU phones on Wednesday, the first day of Autumn Quarter classes.
The outages, which began around 9 a.m. according to the Office of the Chief Information Officer’s website, affected OSU phones utilizing the voice mail system.
Callers were greeted with the message, “The Ohio State University voice mail system is currently experiencing technical difficulties. Office of the CIO technical staff is currently working on resolving this issue.”
Jeff Gondek, a technology support specialist for the OCIO, emphasized the urgency of the issue.
“We’re dedicating all relevant resources to it,” Gondek said. “Given that it’s the first day of the quarter, I imagine considerable pressure is being placed on the quickest resolution possible.”
Cathy Bindewald, director of communication at the OCIO, said the issue was being handled.
“We have our best technicians working on the problem,” Bindewald said.
Maintenance on the service was scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m., according to the OCIO website. The service continued to be unavailable throughout the maintenance process.
Services were expected to be fully restored sometime after 8 p.m., according to the OCIO website.
Still, some faculty experienced difficulties due to the failure.
“According to the light on my phone, I did receive a voice mail today, but wasn’t able to access the system to listen to it,” said Dan McCurley, an academic adviser for the Spanish and Portuguese department. “Luckily the person trying to contact me sent me an email with the same information.
“The most annoying part was having to look at the voice mail light blinking on my phone all day.”
