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Geek Guard to the Rescue
Ant sends a link about the Geek Guard proposal that is floating around. Supposedly technology companies would form the backbone of a fast-response technology force. But Verizon was and is part of the problem with regard to communications, not part of the solution. A lot of technically-inclined people and groups like NYC Wireless did assist in lower Manhattan after Sept. 11, and they're still helping out businesses and people with no internet/phone connections and not even an ETA from Verizon on when Verizon might get around to hooking them up. If Verizon fulfilled their Geek Guard duties with all the rapidity that they, say, install DSL lines for competing DSL providers, they would have "rescheduled" their disaster response three times and we'd have an appointment for early November right now.
As a person with 24 hour restoration contract with Verizon, and it now being nearly 1 month since the "outage" I am not having to pay them around $1000 a day for not delivering to the SLA. Verizon's own Account team called me and told me I wont be billed for this month.. Something good finally came out of this..
my eta for my circuit to be repaired, Mar 2002
`find / -name "*your_base*" -exec chown us:us {} \;`
Email requests for assistance to wtcreliefrequest@nycwireless.net
Please only send direct request from the affected organizations and individuals.
If you have resources and would like to contribute, the following would be useful:
Email offers to wtcreliefoffer@nycwireless.net
NYCwireless has been very busy working with the affected businesses and organizations in New York. We apologize if we do not respond to every email offering support.
Everyone is welcome to use the latest public NYCwireless access point at Tompkins square park or other NYCwireless locations, especially those affected by the WTC attacks.
Thanks,
--Terry Schmidt
NYCwireless
Before Bell Atlantic and GTE merged to form Verizon, there were long standing problems with BA. Back in '98, I was assisting 2 local ISPs with contracted systems engineering... BA was a large problem because they would sit on a phone loop installation order for 6 months before doing anything. Meanwhile, we'd have customers complaining about busy signals because BA would only install new lines on their special schedule.
Most of the ISPs in maine got together and formed a consortium and persued legal action against BA. I'm not 100% sure of the outcome from that, but I'm sure its still a battle being fought with Verizon.
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
Although I work for a subsidiary of Verizon, I am no particular friend -- but I feel I should say this.
Give Verizon a friggin' break here! They've rebuilt an entire telecommunications network in lower Manhattan from scratch -- on the order of 100k+ lines! Photos have been circulated internally of the West St. switching station -- this being the one that had the antenna mast from the WTC pierce it when it fell -- and the equipment is more or less completely replaced now. And they had the NYSE up and running so they could open a week after the attacks. And all of this is in addition to all the emergency communications needs.
That's a pretty formidible task. Even if they are your bitterest enemy, this is an amazing performance.
http://newscenter.verizon.com/wtc/
This proposal from the Senate Subcommittee of Science and Technology gives all of us a chance to use our brainpower for something other than maintaining corporate networks or communication systems and surfing for pr0n. We actually may have opportunity to help save lives and ease the pain of those affected in times of crisis. I dont know about you, but giving blood and money just wasnt enough for me. I wanted to help in a more direct way as well as giving my financial and "biological" support. I humbly suggest that you let your senators know of your desire to help. http://www.senate.gov/senators/senator_by_state.cf m