|
AT&T to Release Fourth-Quarter 2009 Earnings Jan. 28
Copper theft shuts down AT&T service in Dallas AT&T's landline voice customers in Dallas, Texas were without phone service yesterday when
thieves made off with 200 feet of copper cabling. Since the cable theft was done in the very early
morning, AT&T said only about 20 customers reported they were without service yesterday afternoon, meaning that the outage
was not widespread.
Stealing these particular copper cables, which AT&T estimates could fetch no more than
$2000 on the scrap metal market, came at a major risk because they are high tension and are located right next to utility
electric lines. There has been no shortage of copper thieves being electrocuted when they mistakenly cut into an adjacent utility electric wire.
After a slight lull, a
jump in copper prices has spurred on a new wave of copper theft. Similar to AT&T, 700 of Canada's Telus wireline voice
customers were out of service two weeks ago when thieves stole two copper cables. AT&T is offering a $3000 reward to anyone who can help bring the thieves to justice.
CenturyLink lays off another 600 EMBARQ workers Barely six months into its new life as a newly merged company, CenturyLink continues to chop even more
local employees that resided in the former EMBARQ Overland Park, Kansas headquarters. Since the
company formally launched itself as CenturyLink when CenturyTel completed its acquisition of the former EMBARQ, management
has cut about 1,000 from its 20,000 employee base. The majority of the layoffs centered on employees that held information
technology and finance positions in the former EMBARQ headquarters. In addition, another 100 employees left CenturyLink unrelated
to the layoffs. Tony Davis, CenturyLink's vice president of investor relations, said that while
the integration plan is on track, the additional job cuts are part of an ongoing effort to eliminate redundancy as well as
a response to its shrinking wireline voice business. "You're going to see head count impacts
over the two- or three-year integration period," Davis said in a Kansas City Business Journal article. "Those
plans evolve over time."
|
