Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Flashlights, Payphones Rule in Unplugged Manhattan

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2003 02:43:03 -0400

Timmy what happened? Did you forgot most of your Nextel sites in Manhattan only
have a few hours of Battery power?

" Other wireless
carriers such as Cingular Wireless and Nextel Communications Inc NXTL.O were
reporting some problems in the blacked-out areas."

You call this a "Homeland Security" network?

=====================================================================================

Flashlights, Payphones Rule in Unplugged Manhattan
Fri August 15, 2003 01:37 AM ET
By Eric Auchard

NEW YORK (Reuters) - It was a day for flashlights,
transistor radios and hard-to-find payphones as
Manhattanites trapped by the blackout abruptly
discovered the failings of high-tech wireless tools.

"I'm standing completely idle and cut off even though I
have all the latest gadgets imaginable," said Eric Dawson, an Apple Computer
salesman from Marlborough, Connecticut.

"Luckily, I'm a people person so I'm just enjoying talking to everyone stuck
here,"
the native Texan turned New Englander said outside New York's Grand Central
Station.

"I have a Bluetooth wireless connection in my cellphone. I can sync to my laptop
to
get Internet access. But I can't even make a phone call," he said. "I can't text
message," Dawson said in using the latest high-tech language.

Stranded commuters dialed and redialed without success to reach friends or loved
ones on their mobile phones. Only hours after the blackout began did calls begin
to be connected with any frequency.

Sprint PCS PCS.N said its phone networks were up and running, although
customers such as Dawson told Reuters they could not make calls. Other wireless
carriers such as Cingular Wireless and Nextel Communications Inc NXTL.O were
reporting some problems in the blacked-out areas.

Dawson may have been frustrated, but ironically he's been capitalizing in the last

few days on another big problem--the Microsoft Internet worm. As a salesman for
Apple computers, he's benefited because the worm attacks only Windows
computers, a selling point for his own products.

FIGHTS OVER PAY PHONES, WEIRD USES FOR GADGETS

Without power, commuter trains and airports were shut 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, blindly, looking for pay
phones rather than stand in
lines out on the street. People stumbled through darkened hallways using the
screens of their iPod digital
music players and Treo computer phones as flashlights.

One Merrill Lynch executive was trading emails with his sister on the West Coast
via his Blackberry e-mail
pager, asking her for updates on the situation. Blackberries rely on an older
network than mobile phones.

"We're sitting in the dark, can you please summarize the news for us?" he sent in
one message.

For many New Yorkers, it was a reminder of Sept. 11, and the difficulty in
reaching loved ones on cell
phones.

"The phones are out. Two-way pagers are the way. It's just like 9/11," said James
McMillan, a 34-year-old
attorney from Manhattan.

However, some found relief in sitting and watching news reports being streamed on
the Internet, as
television broadcasts were not available in many areas.

But sometimes the best solutions are the low-tech ones.

A mournful trumpeter soothed a resigned crowd of thousands of commuters outside
Grand Central
Station with the patrioitic tune "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."

http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=technologyNews&storyID=3282648

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