Verizon gave a press conference on Wednesday afternoon (1pm) with an update on the status of their network in Lower Manhattan, including details about 140 West Street. http://newscenter.verizon.com/proactive/newsroom/release.vtml?id=61409 should work to pull up the entire release, or call 877 519-4471, PIN 2831692. "The West Street facility contains four call-processing computers serving 200,000 access lines and the equivalent of 3 million data circuits in lower Manhattan. Babbio said that while some circuits that serve the Wall Street area go through the building, the company was attempting to by-pass the West Street facility for these circuits. Babbio said the company does not have an estimate on how long it will take to bring the center fully back online. "The building has three or four major holes -- that means water and dirt have gotten in to sensitive computer gear. Babbio said the company also is pumping water from the basement so that it can restore power to the building using generators. Additional switching equipment is on standby." The replay of the conference goes into more detail about the conditions in the building and what they are worried about in terms of cables and hardware being damaged or destroyed. They take care to point out that once the building comes back online, customers still may not get service until additional repair work underground or at customer premises gets completed. A few Verizon employees (installers or repair techs) working on higher floors had not been accounted for at the time of the conference, and there was a somewhat confusing mention of a couple of Genuity employees who may have been with them. The sales and other office folk (about 500) were on lower floors (9-12 or so) of the tower and nearly all have been accounted for. -- Scott M. Drassinower scottd@cloud9.net Cloud 9 Internet White Plains, NY +1 914 696-4000 / 800 356-5683 http://www.cloud9.net