Subject: [NEXTEL-1] N.E. Phone Networks Flooded with Calls

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2003 02:45:06 -0400

Like I said:

"Nextel Communications Inc. (NasdaqNM:NXTL - News), the nation's fifth-largest wireless
company, reported similar problems in the blackout areas, but said its 
engineers were working to restore service."

=====================================================================================
N.E. Phone Networks Flooded with Calls
Thursday August 14, 7:55 pm ET
By Jessica Hall

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Local and wireless telephone networks throughout the
northeastern United States were clogged with heavy calling volume but stayed in
operation on Thursday despite a massive power outage that swept from New York City
to Toronto, telephone companies said.
Verizon Communications Inc.
(NYSE:VZ - News), the dominant
telephone company from Maine to
Virginia, said its telephone networks
immediately converted to backup
power-generators and ran smoothly.

Some calls were blocked as a flood
of people tried to call friends and
family.

http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/030814/telecoms_verizon_3.html
"The land line phones are working
fine. There's congestion on the
network as people try calling each
other," Verizon spokesman John
Bonomo said. "Each of the central
offices have separate power sources
and are operating normally."

Cingular Wireless, the No. 2 U.S. wireless company, said some of its cell sites -- or network equipment that send and receive wireless signals -- experienced isolated outages in parts of New York, Ohio and Michigan.
Nextel Communications Inc. (NasdaqNM:NXTL - News), the nation's fifth-largest wireless company, reported similar problems in the blackout areas, but said its engineers were working to restore service.
The power outage, which occurred shortly after 4 p.m. EDT left homes and businesses in cities including New York, Detroit, Cleveland and Toronto without electricity.
Emergency 911 calling services were not affected.

PAY PHONE BECOMES HOT COMMODITY

Without power, commuter trains and airports were closed down. Stranded workers outside Penn Station in New York found themselves fighting over pay phones, as overloaded telephone networks rendered some wireless phones temporarily useless.
Others walked into dark buildings near Grand Central Station, blindly looking for pay phones rather than stand in lines out on the street.
The outage was caused by a failure at a Manhattan power plant that destabilized the power grid as far as Canada, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) spokesman Bryan Lee said.
Verizon, the largest U.S. telephone company and the partial owner of No. 1 wireless company Verizon Wireless, said its local and wireless networks normally run on batteries that are recharged by commercial power supplies.
When commercial power fails, generators kick in to refuel the batteries. The diesel generators can be constantly refueled and support phone networks without interruption, Verizon said.
After the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., Verizon
operated telephone networks in downtown Manhattan with generators for more than six months,
Verizon spokesman Eric Rabe said.

The Federal Communications Commission requires a report within two hours if more than 50,000 people are affected by a an outage by a local telephone company. An FCC spokesman said the agency had received no reports of wireline outages from phone companies as of 6:15 p.m. EDT.
Long-distance telephone companies AT&T Corp. (NYSE:T - News), MCI and Cable & Wireless Plc (London:CW.L - News) said their networks operated smoothly.
(Additional reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky in Washington, D.C., Sinead Carew in New York, Elinor
Mills Abreu in san Francisco and Ben Berkowitz in Los Angeles)

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