NYSE’s service provider Verizon sees damage

PHILADELPHIA: Local telephone company Verizon Communications said on

Wednesday the World Trade Center attack damaged network facilities that serve

the New York Stock Exchange and other businesses in Manhattan.

The attack also destroyed 10 wireless transmitter sites, and disrupted

service to an unknown number of customers, Verizon said. "The extent of the

work we have to do is just enormous," said Verizon vice chairman Larry

Babbio. "It could be a very long process" to fully restore service.

The company did not know the exact number of customers who lacked service

because most of the businesses and residences in Lower Manhattan had been

vacated.

"All of our facilities go underground. The ground has taken the

equivalent of small earthquakes, so much has been shaken (that) we don't have

any idea yet how many of the connections from us to our customers have been

disturbed. There's also water all over the place," Babbio said.

New York-based Verizon, the dominant local telephone company in the

northeastern United States, said its network is seeing about 340 million calls -

about twice its normal traffic volume as customers rush to the telephone to call

friends and family. Verizon has added extra telephone lines to Manhattan

hospitals, police stations and emergency response centers to handle the crush of

calls.

Although some facilities have been damaged, it has back-up systems in place

for most areas. Emergency 911 calls are being processed "as well as can be

expected, pretty much close to normal." Verizon has 19 offices that serve

about two million telephone lines in the area, which Babbio called "the

most telecommunications-intensive in the world."

Damage, flooding in offices that serve NYSE



The company has five offices in Southern Manhattan that serve 500,000 lines, as
well as many private connections that link directly to businesses.

Its most heavily damaged facility located adjacent to World Trade Center

Building Seven, which collapsed on Tuesday afternoon, provides no telephone

service. Steel pieces of that destroyed building slammed through Verizon's

office, and water used to fight the fires flooded five basement levels, soaking

communications wires and equipment.

Service from that building, which contains four call-processiong computers

serving 200,000 telephone lines, and three million private data lines for the

New York Stock Exchange and other clients, may be out for "some time,"

he said.

"As we walk through the building, which is filled with smoke and dust,

it is difficult to see, difficult to breathe. Equipment is covered with dirt and

soot and all sorts of things," Babbio said. The West Street facility also

lacks electricity, but the company aims to bring in generators as it works to

restore operations there.

Verizon's Broad Street facility, which handles about about 80 per cent of the

private lines connected to the NYSE, has only intermittent power, which has

interrupted service. It said the NYSE had not yet tested its systems. Stock

trading in the US has been suspended for the past two days due to trade center

destruction.

Technicians missing, presumed dead



Verizon said its nearly 500 employees who worked in the building escaped
unharmed. One Verizon employee, who was with several technicians from Genuity

Inc., called his supervisor as he tried to find safety on the roof of the World

Trade Center, a spokesman said.

"A number of employees who work for Genuity, which is associated with

us, were in the building (and) called us on the way to the roof because they

couldn't get out any other way," Babbio said. He said the workers were

missing and presumed dead.

Internet network operator Genuity confirmed it has been unable to account for

three technicians believed to be in the World Trade Center when it collapsed.

The company has verified the whereabouts of its other 95 employees who work in

the Manhattan area.

At the Pentagon, Babbio said Verizon's telephone network continued to operate

"as close to normal as possible. Obviously there are some services

interrupted because part of the building is very damaged."

Verizon wireless telephone affiliate, Verizon Wireless, lost 10 wireless

transmitter sites in New York. It has replaced seven sites in the New York and

New Jersey area, and added two in Washington and one in Pennsylvania where one

of the four hijacked planes crashed.

(C) Reuters Limited 2001.