Vulnerability of Telco Switching Equipment

call -151 writes: "Interesting New York times article about the Sept 11th attacks' effect on the Verizon switches in lower Manhattan. Turns out there was a problem in that much of the network switching was in one building and it has taken a while to restore service. Sounds like there is lots of pondering about the vulnerability of the network, even when it is distributed across many physical locations. Of course the attacks are making lots of people rethink their vulnerabilities, but the estimate is for five years' work before there could be redundant paths for the lines into their switches in the one building, with no plans to spend the money to do it. Maybe someone should send them a few hundred thousand 'self-install' kits like they do with their DSL service ..."