Another reason to keep your landline. During major events, cell phone networks are quickly overwhelmed while wired phone lines still work.

The Associated Press is reporting minutes ago that a law enforcement official has ordered all cellphone service in the Boston area temporarily suspended to prevent any possibility of remote detonations of any other improvised explosive devices. But we have our doubts and in fact was able to reach one of our Boston readers by cell phone in downtown Boston just a moment ago.

“I can’t make calls on Verizon without getting a fast busy signal, but I am getting calls regularly at the moment,” reports Jim, one of our regular readers. “The cell networks are totally jammed with everyone on the phone in this city.”

Jim says a number of his co-workers had no idea there were two explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon this afternoon, but word-of-mouth office gossip spread the news over the last hour or so.

“Landlines are working fine, which is another reason you cannot and should not rely on cell phones alone during a major news event or disaster, because they are highly vulnerable to capacity crushes,” Jim said. “Our Internet access at work has also slowed to an absolute crawl and you cannot access a lot of local news websites, so we’ve watched the coverage on over the air television.”

Numerous press reports speculate the two explosions that killed two and injured at least two dozen were the result of some type of explosive device, but law enforcement officials have refused to confirm those reports so far.

As of 5:15pm EDT, Sprint and Verizon Wireless reported they were attempting to maintain service as best as possible despite the flood of wireless calls, and no carrier has confirmed they have been asked to switch off service.

“We are experiencing call blocking due to what’s happening,” Mark Elliott, a Sprint spokesman told the Boston Globe. “The network is blocking calls because the number of calls coming in exceeds the capacity. There’s no way the network can handle that kind of traffic.”

Elliott is asking cell phone users to text messages to friends and loved ones and avoid voice calling until capacity improves. This can keep lines open and clear for emergency and law enforcement officials.

Verizon Wireless, meanwhile, issued a statement, saying: “Verizon Wireless has been enhancing network voice capacity to enable additional calling in the Copley Square area of Boston. Customers are advised to use text or email to free up voice capacity for public safety officials at the scene. There was no damage to the Verizon Wireless network, which is seeing elevated calling and data usage throughout the region since the explosions occurred.”

Update 5:54pm EDT: The Associated Press has officially retracted their earlier story. There has been no request to suspend cell phone service, but carriers are impacted by heavy call volumes.

Satellite television provider Dish Network today offered $25.5 billion for Sprint Nextel Corp., in an unsolicited bid that surprised the wireless industry.

The bid, announced by CEO Charles Ergen, is $5.5 billion higher than that offered by Japan’s Softbank, which already had a pending deal to take a 70 percent stake in the third largest wireless carrier.

The bidding may not yet be over if Softbank decides to counter with a higher offer or if other bidders emerge in the coming weeks.

Ergen has signaled his interest in entering wireless markets to compensate for slowing earnings in the satellite television business.

“He is trying to transform his own business,” Vijay Jayant, an analyst at International Strategy & Investment Group in New York told Bloomberg News. “He’s trying to reinvent himself, moving from satellite to wireless.”

Ergen’s vision would include a bundled package of satellite television, broadband wireless Internet and cellular telephone service. Providing suitable wireless broadband Internet in rural areas may be the biggest challenge because of Sprint’s more limited network coverage, but a marketing deal combining satellite television from Dish and Sprint cell phone service would be easier to carry out.

Ergen’s offer includes $8.2 billion in stock and $17.3 billion in cash. Ergen’s company has stockpiled at least $10 billion from selling bonds over the last year. He intends to borrow the rest.

Ergen earlier had attempted to disrupt a deal that would have consolidated Clearwire into Sprint. Ergen offered $3.30 a share for Clearwire, 33 cents higher than the $2.97 per share offer from Sprint. Ergen also reportedly approached both MetroPCS and Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile USA looking for a deal to no avail.

Some analysts question whether Ergen has enough experience to manage a major wireless company with only his past involvement selling satellite TV subscriptions. But he arrives with more than just cash and stock options. Ergen has acquired mobile spectrum from bankrupt TerreStar Networks and DBSD North America. Ergen says he has no interest in building his own wireless network, but a combined Sprint/Dish could manage the spectrum through Sprint’s existing operations.

Ergen told Bloomberg News combining the spectrum Dish owns with the spectrum owned by Sprint and Clearwire would assure Americans of a robust wireless data platform that will not have capacity constraints or require individual device fees. That is in keeping with Sprint’s existing marketing as a provider of truly unlimited wireless data plans.

Several Wall Street analysts told CNBC and Bloomberg News the deal with Softbank may be more ideal for shareholders and consumers, because it would strengthen Sprint’s leverage with equipment manufacturers to offer cheaper and more robust devices.

Consumer advocates have mixed feelings. Dish has no prior association to the wireless industry so the deal does not represent direct, competitive consolidation. It also would boost Sprint as a more formidable competitor to AT&T and Verizon Wireless. But it could also further orphan T-Mobile USA.

“Right now, we have two giants and two also-rans, and now you’re getting potentially three giants dividing up the American market place, with T-Mobile lagging far behind,” Susan Crawford told the New York Times.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Bloomberg What Does Dish See in Sprint Thats Worth 25B 4-15-13.flv[/flv]

Bloomberg News explores what Dish sees in Sprint that is worth a bid of $25.5 billion to acquire the country’s third largest mobile company.  (2 minutes)

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Bloomberg Dish Bids 25-5 Billion for Sprint to Challenge Softbank 4-15-13.flv[/flv]

Bloomberg says Dish has been stockpiling $10 billion in cash for new acquisitions to transform its business away from a satellite TV-only company.  (2 minutes)

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Bloomberg All Things Are on the Table for Sprint 4-15-13.flv[/flv]

Christopher Marangi, of Gabelli Asset Fund talks with Bloomberg’s Erik Schatzker about Dish Network’s unsolicited $25.5 billion offer for Sprint and what options are available to Sprint with the offers it has on the table. (2 minutes)

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Bloomberg Dish Bid for Sprint Lacks Capital Chaplin Says 4-15-13.flv[/flv]

Jonathan Chaplin, an analyst with New Street Research LLP, thinks Softbank’s original offer is superior to the one from Dish.  (6 minutes)

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Bloomberg Bidding for Sprint Is Not Over Fritzshe 4-15-13.flv[/flv]

Jennifer Fritzsche, Managing Director of Equity Research at Wells Fargo Securities, discusses the likelihood of other players making bids. (2 minutes)

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Bloomberg What Did Dish CEO Ergen Say About Sprint Bid 4-15-13.flv[/flv]

A Bloomberg News reporter interviewed Charlie Ergen about why he wants to enter the wireless business.  Ergen’s vision includes no nickel and diming customers with monthly device fees and usage charges. (4 minutes)

More than six months after Hurricane Sandy did her handiwork on coastal New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, hundreds of residents are still getting phone bills from Verizon for phone and Internet service they have been without since Halloween.

Most of the outages are around the Ocean Bay development in Far Rockaway, south of Brooklyn.

For thousands of residents, the only regular communication from Verizon every month arrives in the form of a bill.

“I need that phone to make phone calls for an ambulance or long distance or the police department,” Geraldine Jones, president of the development’s tenant association, told the Daily News. “We’re tired of being without our landlines. It’s terrible. They’ve got the nerve to send me a bill every month. I’m frustrated and angry. It’s not fair. It’s not right.”

WNYC Radio reports local politicians are now getting involved in Verizon’s half-year landline outages on Far Rockaway. (1 minute)
You must remain on this page to hear the clip, or you can download the clip and listen later.

Verizon’s response has mostly been shrugged shoulders and no firm estimate of when service will be repaired.

“Verizon is working closely with the New York City Housing Authority and together we have made good progress in restoring service to residents to of the Ocean Bay apartment complex,” company spokesman Phil Santoro retorted in a statement. “By the end of this month, we will begin restoring service to all those who live in the complex from 54th to 59th streets on our brand new state-of-the-art fiber optic network.”

But that means some of Verizon’s customers will have been without phone service for more than half a year.

“It shouldn’t take six months,” said City Councilman Donovan Richards. “Some of these people don’t have cell phones. They’re elderly. It’s a public safety issue.”

WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show takes a close look at telecom outages after Hurricane Sandy. (17 minutes)
You must remain on this page to hear the clip, or you can download the clip and listen later.

Austin, Texas is likely the next Google Fiber city.

Austin, Texas will be the second major U.S. city to receive Google Fiber’s 1,000/1,000Mbps service, perhaps as early as 2014.

A “major announcement” at a news conference scheduled for Tuesday morning is expected to bring more than 100 community leaders together to hear Google’s plans for the city.

Local media reports, an accidental mention of Austin as the next Google Fiber city on Google’s Fiber Blog, and at least one confidential source at Austin’s public utility company (that owns the poles Google Fiber will be strung across) makes it all-but-certain Austin and its nearby suburbs will get the service.

Austin would seem a natural target for Google as home to the high-tech South by Southwest. Austin also hosts Dell, Texas Instruments, AMD, Samsung, IBM, Intel, and a myriad of Internet start-ups. But a key factor for Google also seems to be the presence of Austin Energy, the nation’s 8th largest community-owned electric utility, serving more than 420,000 customers and a population of almost one million. Kansas City, the first choice for Google Fiber, also has a municipal utility company.

Milo Medin, Google’s vice president of access services, made it clear that Google is targeting cities where it does not have to deal with intransigent privately owned utility companies that make life difficult (or expensive) to attach Google Fiber to utility poles. Municipally owned providers have proved easier to work with, and in Kansas City elected officials also helped cut through administrative red tape and facilitated a working relationship between Google and government officials responsible for issuing work permits and clearing up zoning headaches.

Areas served by investor owned electric giants like Southern California Edison, Florida Power & Light, Commonwealth Edison, Consolidated Edison, Georgia Power, Dominion Resources, Detroit Edison, Public Service Enterprise Group, and others may be at an immediate disadvantage in the race to become the next Google Fiber city if those companies attempt to throw expensive roadblocks or disadvantageous bureaucracy in front of Google.

Another factor in Kansas City’s favor was the large amount of pre-existing conduit available to pull fiber infrastructure through without tearing up streets. Cities with this type of infrastructure already in place dramatically reduces construction costs and permit delays.

Google Fiber’s project in Austin will compete directly with Time Warner Cable and AT&T U-verse. Time Warner Cable customers antagonized Austin residents in the spring of 2009 with a planned market test of consumption billing and usage caps for its Internet service. Google Fiber makes a point to say its broadband service is never usage-limited. AT&T U-verse customers in Austin have so far  not faced punitive measures from the phone company when exceeding its 250GB U-verse usage cap.

Many cable industry analysts predicted Google Fiber was simply a show project in Kansas City, designed to embarrass the telecommunications industry’s mediocre and expensive broadband service offerings. But a move into Austin signals Google more likely sees its fiber network as a lucrative business opportunity — one that could gradually be expanded to other cities.

What communities could get the service next? Google seems likely to avoid serving areas covered by Verizon FiOS, because competing fiber networks would likely not produce the bang for the buck Google needs to draw subscribers, and Medin makes it clear the company has found working with publicly owned utility companies easier than privately owned ones, so future Google Fiber cities will likely have these factors in common:

Having a publicly owned utility helps.

• A high-tech business community and well-educated workforce in a medium to large city;
• A publicly owned municipal utility willing to work with Google;
• Pre-existing infrastructure to support fiber service without tearing up streets and neighborhoods;
• A local government willing to cut red tape and ease Google’s expansion;
• No Verizon FiOS fiber service in the immediate metropolitan area;
• A reasonable level of regulations covering environmental impacts of utility infrastructure work, permits, and licensing.

Such requirements would wipe out almost all New York (except Rochester, Binghamton and the Southern Tier around Ithaca — all completely bypassed by Verizon FiOS) and New Jersey as possible candidates. California outside of Mountain View would also seem untenable because of government regulations, sprawling cities, and private utilities. Florida and Georgia have two major private power companies to contend with as well. But there are opportunities in Texas, the Carolinas, Minnesota, Washington, Arizona, Colorado, Tennessee, Massachusetts, and across several midwestern states, especially those served by AT&T’s inferior U-verse system.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KXAN Austin Google Fiber Expected in Austin 4-5-13.mp4[/flv]

KXAN in Austin spent almost seven minutes of its weekend evening newscast talking about forthcoming Google Fiber in Austin.  (7 minutes)

We do love fiber to the home broadband around here, especially when Verizon responsibly avoids usage caps of any kind, but we’re still surprised they re-tweeted us on their official Verizon Twitter channel. Verizon has received well-deserved compliments for offering fiber upgrades while other phone companies tough it out with DSL or offer half-measures like AT&T’s U-verse. Our biggest complaint is that the rest of VerizonLand doesn’t have a clear path to get the service (and the fact our headquarters are in Rochester, N.Y., the only major city in New York not served by Verizon, so no FiOS for us… ever. Frontier Communications is our local telephone provider, and they have underwhelmed us for years.)