Telcos continue to work overtime on systems

Carriers last week continued to scramble to get business in New York and Washington, D.C., back on track, and by most accounts, were faring well under the circumstances.

By Friday, Verizon said it had resumed service to all large business users in the World Trade Center area and was turning its efforts to restoring service to small and midsize businesses. The provider estimated between 9,000 and 14,000 small to midsize businesses were without service.

While Verizon's network was able to meet the demands placed on it by the stock markets, voice service in the city was spotty, with calls in and out frequently getting circuit busy signals.

The West Street central office that was damaged Sept. 11 remained out of service. Verizon managed to reroute more than half of the 3.5 million data lines served by the office.

Wireless service, which played such a key role in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, was also returning to normal last week. Sprint PCS reported that as of last Monday, 93% of its network in the New York City area was functioning. A number of carriers deployed additional cell sites in the city, both to make up for lost sites and to add capacity for emergency workers relying on cell phones.

A number of the large carriers, including AT&T and Verizon, responded to last week's disaster by donating free pay-phone service, calling cards and wireless phones to aid in the relief effort. Some competitive local exchange carriers, such as Yipes Communications and Everest Broadband, offered temporary office space to displaced businesses or temporary free Internet access.

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