Re: AT&T Switch operational in basement of WTC

[Strata Rose Chalup <strata () virtual net>]

On another list someone posted:

"I'm being told by friends that this story is false--it's been circulating,
but once real live AT&T people were consulted, they said their equipment
failed due to flooding shortly after the collapse.  The press may be
shortcutting on story confirmations..."

SRC

Randy Neals wrote:
> Seems almost too good to be true... Does anyone know any more about this?
>
> AT&T's switch in the basement apparently operated after the collapse until
> 4PM.
> They expect to recover the switch hardware....
>
> Hmmmm...
>
> So if you can build a switch room that doesn't collapse when 2 x 110 story
> buildings fall on it, why not get those engineers to design the building so
> it doesn't collapse in the first place?
>
> -R
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> --
> Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
>
> AT&T equipment survived trade center collapse
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>
> PHILADELPHIA, Sept 12 (Reuters) - AT&T Corp. (NYSE:T - news), the No. 1 U.S.
>
> long-distance telephone and cable television company, said its
> communications
> network carried a flood of heavy calling volume on Wednesday, but remained
> unharmed after its equipment survived the collapse of the World Trade
> Center.
>
> Calling volume on "the network is running about about 20 percent above a
> typical Wednesday morning," AT&T spokesman Dave Johnson said. "There's
> heavy inbound surge to the New York and Washington areas and some
> network congestion, but nothing like yesterday."
>
> AT&T handles about 300 million voice telephone calls a day.  It carried 431
> million calls on Tuesday as customers flooded the telephone lines in the
> wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, making it the
> heaviest business day in the company's network history, Johnson said.
>
> AT&T's local network switching equipment, which routes telephone calls, was
> located in the basement of the World Trade Center towers and survived the
> implosion of the buildings, Johnson said.
>
> "It appears the equipment has survived ... It was up and alive and still
> providing dial tone by 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon. Once the back-up
> batteries ran out, we took them offline, but the equipment is still
> working,"
> Johnson said.
>
> "We were amazed," he said. "It was several stories under ground and all I
> can say is that they must have built up that basement very sturdy.''
>
> The switching equipment handled calls for AT&T business customers in Lower
> Manhattan.  The company rerouted calls and suffered no network outages,
> Johnson said.
>
> AT&T will retrieve the equipment once it gets approval from New York City
> and disaster teams to approach the rubble of the World Trade Center.  The
> New York-based company said none of its employees were injured or killed in
> the attacks.

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Strata Rose Chalup [KF6NBZ]                      strata "@" virtual.net
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