By Alex Silverman – WCBS – NY
The massive storm surge brought on by superstorm Sandy flooded homes, cars, businesses and a lot of the city’s vital infrastructure in lower Manhattan. At Verizon’s Broad Street central offices, the underground cable vault was badly damaged by the saltwater.
Crews have been working around the clock to rip out the damaged copper wires in an effort to get service fully restored. “That sound you hear is a saw cutting through the copper cables,” Verizon’s head of national operations Chris Levendos told WCBS 880′s Alex Silverman during a tour of the underground lower Manhattan hub.
Read the full story: WCBS-NY
Analyzing AT&T’s Plan to Expand Service: Transformation or Bait and Switch for Rural America
By TR Daily, Aspen Publishers
AT&T’s rural solution is to take down the existing landline network and move everyone to its wireless cell phone service. To implement this proposed solution, AT&T will aggressively invest in rural cell sites within the 22 states where it supplies landline service. The company claims 99% of its customers will be able to access a 4G LTE signal within a few years.
AT&T Has a Plan — Move Customers Away from Low Profit, Low Growth Landlines to High Profit Wireless/Deregulated Broadband
AT&T posted a copy of its proposal sent to the Federal Communications Commission.
Reviewing the 24-page document is a classic case of déjà vu. Once again, after the rhetoric is set aside, AT&T is back, peddling the same case to retire landline service and the regulatory obligations that accompany it. Only now, it has a carrot to dangle in front of regulators — significant investments in broadband expansion.