Not long ago, the United States led the world in broadband connectivity. Now we are in 16^th place, trailing most developed nations. We need broadband policies that connect our homes, schools, and business to the 21^st century economy, but we’re pursuing public policies that are putting us in a hole, helping private telecommunications providers and harming the public interest. As the old adage goes, when in a hole, stop digging.

Lampert

Two twenty-something cell phone salesmen in Florida will be looking for work — and lawyers — after police say the two stole risqué pictures off a woman’s cell phone and then shared them with each other and at least one customer.

Officers arrested Gregory Lampert and are waiting for the other employee, Joshua Stuart, to return from vacation.

Authorities say Stuart offered to assist the Bartow-area woman with moving her photos and contacts from an old damaged cell phone to the one Verizon Wireless reseller Cellular Sales just sold her.

But investigators say Stuart ended up keeping the old phone and transferred copies of her pictures for himself. Unfortunately for the victim, a waitress at a nearby restaurant, several of the photos depicted her in various states of undress. Stuart allegedly shared what he called “the banging” pictures with at least one co-worker and a customer.

That customer happened to recognize the woman in the photographs and promptly told her. The victim filed a police report which launched the investigation by the Bartow Police.

Police later executed a search warrant at the Verizon store, seizing a laptop computer and two cell phones later found to contain pictures taken from the victim’s phone. Lampert later confessed he received copies of the images from Stuart and admitted to “stealing nude pictures” from another customer’s phone. Lampert is now charged with two felonies — dealing in stolen property and offenses against computer users and a misdemeanor count of theft.

Dhiman Bhattacharjee, owner of iPhone Repair of Lakeland told WFTS-TV customers should consider backing up and restoring data between phones on their own — a process made increasingly easy by cloud storage backup services offered by major wireless carriers.

“Whenever we transfer data, we always do it in front of our customers,” Bhattacharjee said. “A lot of times we’ll have a customer bring their own laptop or their PC or Mac and we’ll help them transfer or make a backup of their phone,” he said.

Another common sense tip: don’t take or record images on your phone you would be embarrassed about if others saw them. If you can’t help yourself, make sure to delete or move them before taking your device to a third party.

Verizon Wireless is reportedly very unhappy about the incident. The store in question is owned and operated by a third party reseller, and is not owned by Verizon outright. But Verizon’s name is prominently displayed inside and outside the store. Verizon told WFTS they intend to hold both the employees and the store accountable for violating customer privacy.

A spokesman for Cellular Sales of Knoxville, which runs the Bartow store, told the station they were extremely shocked by what happened and are “working like crazy to ensure it never happens again.”

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WFTS Tampa Cell phone salesmen accused of stealing customers nude pictures 10-31-12.mp4[/flv]

WFTS in Tampa covers the story of what can happen to your personal photos when unscrupulous technicians decide to make copies and share them with others.  (2 minutes)

The darker the color, the higher percentage of CP&L customers without electric service. Areas in gray are served by other electric utilities.

Although less hard-hit than New Jersey, Connecticut residents will wait almost as long as customers further south for restoration of electric service, with AT&T getting its own services back up and running only after electric utility repair crews finish work.

Customers across the state are experiencing power outages that range from a handful of homes to near-complete blackouts that utility companies predict will take at least a week to repair. For a second day, AT&T continued to leave its customers in the dark, with nothing more than a general statement it continued to “assess the damage” to its wired and wireless networks that “have issues” across Connecticut.

In fact, AT&T’s most visible effort for Connecticut customers waiting for service is a website promotion asking for $10 donations for the American Red Cross, conveniently billed to your AT&T account.

“Why did I expect anything more from AT&T when they never seem to be terribly interested in customer service generally,” complains Stop the Cap! reader Bethany Johnson, also a U-verse customer e-mailing us from a friend’s phone on Verizon Wireless. “AT&T customer service won’t say anything to us and you can’t find a thing on their website with the same old statements on the news.”

Johnson says Connecticut Light & Power (CL&P) restored her electric service early this morning, but U-verse is out and her AT&T cell phone no longer has any signal from her home.

“When you call AT&T, one of their call centers answers and they just read out some statement that tells you nothing,” she says. “Verizon Wireless and Cablevision are falling all over each other trying to give us updates, but AT&T can’t be bothered.”

Johnson says her friends with Verizon Wireless seem to have weathered Hurricane Sandy better than she did, with much more sporadic AT&T cell service afflicting customers across Connecticut.

“My husband drives for a living and he says AT&T’s cell network as of today along the roads he travels really took a beating and he often can’t get in touch with me,” Johnson said. “AT&T says they have ‘issues’ in Connecticut and I am getting to the point where I am having an issue with them. Just tell us what is going on, we can take it.”

United Illuminating is reporting 137,983 customers without power; more than 43 percent of its service area. Nearly all of UI’s customers in the Southport section of Fairfield have no electric service, followed by Weston at 90 percent, Trumbull with nearly 85 percent, Monroe at nearly 82 percent and Bridgeport at 71 percent.

CL&P is reporting 351,910 or about 28 percent of its customers without power. In southwestern Connecticut, more than half of CL&P’s customers are in the dark in Darien, Greenwich, New Canaan, Westport, Wilton, Weston, Newtown, Monroe and Danbury.

Extensive flooding caused by Hurricane Sandy swamped the ground floor of Verizon’s headquarters at 140 West St. in lower Manhattan.

Verizon Communications, the largest telecommunications company in the northeast, has been trying to assess the widespread damage to its wireline, fiber, and wireless networks but remains hampered by major damage to its own operations centers and leftover flooding in coastal areas.

Verizon’s headquarters in lower Manhattan on West Street had several feet of water on the ground floor Monday night. At noon today, Verizon called conditions below 39th Street in lower Manhattan “bleak” because of flooding. Verizon’s network technical facilities received extensive damage in the area, and some facilities had water high enough in basements to damage backup power equipment. The company spent the last day just pumping flood water out of their facilities in the area and is now bringing in new generators to power buildings and restore service.

The venerable landline, now considered a relic by a growing number of Americans, may prove to be the hardy survivor of Hurricane Sandy, holding up well in areas upstate and in parts of New York City where spotty cell service has left residents doing the unthinkable – lining up in front of working pay phones.

With cell phone batteries all but dead and power restoration likely to take days if not weeks, Verizon’s self-powered landlines that survived the storm are holding up, even if customers’ memories are not.

“The good news is the payphones that are still left are working, the bad news is who can remember anyone’s phone number anymore?” says Stop the Cap! reader Richard, who has been without power since Monday night. “Cell phone contact lists don’t help much until you can recharge your phone.”

Several New Yorkers are joining Richard looking for community centers and public libraries with working electrical outlets to recharge cell phones while catching up with e-mail on computer terminals that still have Internet access. Some boroughs remain virtually cut off from the rest of New York with roads, tunnels, bridges and public transport only gradually reopening on a limited basis.

Verizon called conditions south of the Garment District in lower Manhattan “bleak.”

Verizon’s Satellite Solutions Group is sending several emergency mobile communications vehicles to New Jersey and New York this evening to provide communications services to the impacted region. The disaster recovery fleet is completely self-contained and does not require any commercial power to operate. The mobile vehicles offer voice, data and Internet connectivity as well as charging capabilities for mobile devices.

“Sandy has left a trail of destruction throughout the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, with historic flooding in New York and New Jersey and a hurricane-fueled snowstorm in southwest Virginia and western Maryland,” said Bob Mudge, president of Verizon’s consumer and mass business division.  “We are asking the public to remain focused on staying safe as there may be dangerous conditions such as fallen trees or power lines.  Our dedicated employees – from technicians to customer service consultants – run to a crisis and will continue to do what it takes to put customers back in touch.”

For that to happen, Verizon is waiting for electric utilities to get service back up and running. The company suspects most of its problems are related to electric service interruptions that will resolve once power is restored. But in lower Manhattan and along the coastline, more significant damage is likely to take longer to repair.

Verizon facilities in lower Manhattan, Queens and Long Island have received major damage from severe flooding, interrupting commercial power and rendering backup power systems inoperable.  In some cases, Verizon teams have not been able to access the sites, due to flooding and safety concerns.

As battery backup and generated power fails, additional central offices could lose service until Verizon crews can reach those facilities. Where flood waters have wreaked havoc with Verizon’s equipment, it could take a week or more to restore service. In such cases, it’s crucial to consider hiring a water damage restoration service to expedite the recovery process. For detailed information on water damage restoration, please see page.

Verizon Wireless service is reportedly in better shape, with 94% of cell sites still working, according to the company.

But with heavy call volumes and interruptions to Verizon’s backhaul connections which connect cell towers to Verizon’s network, having good reception is no guarantee customers will be able to complete calls or receive them.

Many New Yorkers report outgoing calls go nowhere and incoming calls go straight to voicemail, even with phones powered on.

Other Verizon notifications affecting customers across the northeast:

“All circuits are busy” or “Your call cannot be completed at this time”

Some Verizon customers in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast region of the U.S. may receive a message of “All circuits are busy” or “Your call cannot be completed at this time” when trying to make a call. This is due to an unusually large volume of calls in the network as a result of Hurricane Sandy. Our engineers are working to accommodate this additional call volume. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

Shipment Delays

As storm related transportation disruptions clear, Verizon customers will begin to receive shipments of routers, set top boxes and cabling. However, there may continue to be delays in completing deliveries due to road conditions. We will continue to process orders and ship equipment to our customers as quickly as possible.

Need to Report An Electric Outage or Check on the Status of Repairs in Your Area?

Hurricane Sandy’s destructive forces of wind and water, combined with extensive electrical outages has wreaked havoc with telecommunications services from Maine to Virginia, leaving some customers potentially without service for weeks.

The storm has flooded Verizon‘s central switching offices in New York City, did extensive damage to Sprint’s wireless network and infrastructure, has left large sections of upstate and downstate New York without cable service, and clocks ticking for wireless cell customers using cell sites currently running on battery backup power.

Some of the worst problems are affecting Verizon’s landline and FiOS networks after the company lost two critical switching centers in Manhattan to extensive flooding. That has contributed to significant problems for Verizon customers across Manhattan, Queens, and Long Island. Further afield, Verizon customers without service can blame power outages and fallen trees that took out overhead wiring. Together, Verizon customers are experiencing significant problems with landline, broadband, and FiOS TV and Internet services in some areas.

Many Verizon Wireless cell sites are operating on battery backup units which maintain service for only a limited time. New York, New Jersey and Connecticut customers report increasing difficulty maintaining cell service signals as those battery backup units start to fail. Verizon engineering crews can restore undamaged cell sites with backup generators once permitted into storm-ravaged areas.

One of the hardest hit wireless carriers

Cablevision‘s business largely depends on areas that took a direct hit from Hurricane Sandy. Cablevision repair crews are encountering extensive power outages and damaged overhead wiring brought down during the storm in Connecticut and Long Island. Its service area closer to New York City has been primarily affected by power outages. Comcast said it was still starting an assessment process and was not prepared to report on the current state of its network, which operates in cities north and south of the New York City metro area.

While Time Warner Cable spokesman Alex Dudley reports little damage to Time Warner Cable’s systems, many remain offline from power interruptions, and Time Warner’s Twitter feed for upstate New York reports isolated outages in Portland, Maine and across upstate New York, primarily due to power losses or damage to infrastructure.

Sprint appears to be the hardest hit wireless carrier with widespread service outages, interruptions and call completion issues throughout the states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Washington DC, Maryland, North Virginia and New England. Some customers far away from the worst-hit areas report trouble making and receiving calls on Sprint’s network. Many cell sites are also damaged.

AT&T is assessing damage to its landline operations in Connecticut, where it is the dominant phone company. Many AT&T cell phone sites, like Verizon, are operating on battery backup in power outage areas until AT&T can bring generators online to maintain service.

T-Mobile and MetroPCS report damage and service outages to their cellular networks as well, mostly from power outages.

Lyndhurst, NJ

Even old style communications networks were not spared from Hurricane Sandy. The Northeast Radio Watch reports a large number of broadcasters across the region off the air as of this morning:

• Outside of WOR (710), most New York City area AM stations are off the air. WOR survived the storm with its recently built three tower site located just above the flood waters. Chief engineer Tom Ray told NERW the water is 10 feet deep at WOR’s transmitter site in the Meadowlands. Many AM stations in New York favor transmitter locations in now-ravaged Lyndhurst and the Meadowlands. The result: indefinite absence of all-news WINS (1010) (it’s now back up — thanks to an update from Scott Fybush), which is now being heard on WXRK (92.3). Also missing: WLIB (1190), WSNR (620), WMCA (570), WNYC (820), WPAT (930), WNYM (970), WADO (1280) and WWRV (1330). FM outlets favor much higher transmitter locations, usually atop large skyscrapers, that escaped flood damage.
• WABC continues to air the audio portion of its broadcast on WEPN-AM (1050) and FM (98.7) for the benefit of those without power. WCBS studios are currently powered “by candlelight.”
• The Jersey shore’s FM outlets are mostly silent. Atlantic City was among the hardest hit, and some stations may be off the air for some time while rebuilding.
• Connecticut stations are also off the air. Powerhouse WICC (600) in Bridgeport has transmitters on Long Island Sound — a poor choice to withstand Sandy. It is likely underwater. Also gone: WGCH (1490 Greenwich), WAXB (850 Ridgefield) and WSHU (1260 Westport) and WALK-FM (97.5 Patchogue).

Repair crews for all concerned will likely only start assessing damage later today, but many will have to wait for power crews to complete work — they have first priority. Those lucky enough to see service restoration once power returns will be in far better shape than others who could wait weeks to get their Internet, television and phone service back.

Correction: Original story included reference to studio power knocked out at WOR-TV. That should have said WOR-AM (radio).