Hurricane Sandy wipes out wired phone service to east coast islands

While it seems deeper in the past than it is, Hurricane Sandy devastated parts of the east coast only 10 months ago and some areas are still in the middle of the cleanup process. Rebuilding houses and cleaning debris was just the beginning, and returning to normal life is the next step. This includes simple things like turning on the lights and setting up a phone. However, in many instances, this is easier said than done.

According to a recent ComputerWorld article, Fire Island, New York and Mantoloking, New Jersey had the copper phone line system completely destroyed and Verizon would need to spend nearly $11 million ($17,000 per affected customer – 635 in all) to fix the landlines. Instead, the company has been using the more cost effective VoIP option to get consumers connected again.

"Where Sandy wiped out our [copper] facilities, there was no wired home phone service of any kind after the storm and we carefully considered the options that would be most effective in meeting consumers' immediate needs, as well as the long-term needs of the island," said Tom Maguire, senior vice president of national operations support in a Verizon blog post.

If you were a small business on one of those islands that relied on a wired phone system to communicate, these events could be are devastating and lead to closing doors. With the help of an IT consulting firm that specializes in VoIP phone systems and unified communication solutions, companies can implement a service that will be able to weather any storm.

From our offices in Dayton, Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland, PRO OnCall is your single-source technology consulting service, offering managed IT support, unified communications solutions and on-call IT support.