RE: @Home ordered to shutdown at Midnight

[Sean Donelan <sean () donelan com>]

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.