North American Network Operators Group

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RE: @Home ordered to shutdown at Midnight

  • From: Sean Donelan
  • Date: Fri Nov 30 17:19:26 2001

On Fri, 30 Nov 2001, James Smith wrote:
> Interesting to note that even though the govt is all for getting everyone on
> the "Information Superhigway", no mention is made of any government
> sponsored plan to prevent the service from going dark.

The FCC Chairman Michael Powell did write to the Judge overseeing
the bankruptcy proceedings.

> If this were a provider of POTS, and it was dialtone being turned off, would
> there would be some scrambling by the govt to prevent it?

The Judge said only if "public health or safety" would be affected.

A hospital or similar type of customer could come forward, and request
the judge re-consider because a shutdown would affect some critical
public health of safety function.  But I think that is unlikely in
this case.