AT&T U-verse batteries going supernova

AT&T is looking to replace 17,000 backup batteries in U-verse equipment cabinets all over the country over concerns that they can explode. Those are confirmed concerns, too, as there have been four confirmed incidents since October 2006. Explosions have occurred in Houston, Cleveland and Wisconsin; the Wisconsin incident reportedly was strong enough to blow the 50-pound cabinet door off its bolts. The bad news for AT&T is that the battery manufacturer, Avestor, filed for bankruptcy in October 2006 and is no longer in business. What's worse is that a consulting firm hired to examine the first incidents deemed the battery design ok, and chalked up the explosions to "manufacturing defects." So now AT&T has taken it upon itself to spend some big bucks to locate and replace the already-in-service (and obviously widely dispersed) lithium metal polymer batteries.

[Via TVOver, image courtesy of LightReading]

EDIT: Spelling error fixed (thanks, Bryce!) and photo credit changed (thanks, Phil!).

[Bryce @ Jan 16th 2008 8:57AM]

s/bee/been/

[[e-mail] @ Jan 16th 2008 10:49PM]

Lolcats call tech support

cat: ahh my intarnetz are broked
tech support cat: soz kitty da dlsam explode

[michas_pi @ Jan 16th 2008 9:09AM]

I remember hearing about the Cleveland explosion. It gave me lulz.

[daniel.janis @ Jan 16th 2008 10:17AM]

But was the explosion in HD?

[lectoid @ Jan 16th 2008 10:40AM]

It's ok everyone, AT&T will somehow pass the cost on to the consumers. No need to worry.

[Michael S @ Jan 16th 2008 10:41AM]

Caller: I don't like the job your company has done landscaping my lawn.

AT&T Customer Care: Excuse me?

Caller: I wasn't really going for the war torn yard look.

[Adrian Williams @ Jan 16th 2008 10:55AM]

Hey Engadget you're about a year late This has been talked about on BBR for about a year now

[tony @ Jan 16th 2008 11:08AM]

About how late are they again?

[Phil Harvey @ Jan 16th 2008 11:09AM]

PCWorld got its photos from us, btw. http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=131210

[matt @ Jan 16th 2008 11:28AM]

http://tyler.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2006/10/31/2463013.html

avestor made 20k batteries two months before filing for bankruptcy, and 17k went to att.

[Hax Or @ Jan 16th 2008 11:32AM]

Ya, something smells fishy with that...

Or perhaps that's just the 'post-explosion' smell.

[james_leonick @ Jan 16th 2008 11:30AM]

LOL! I have to add to the HD comment and ask if it was heard in 5.1 dolby surround sound.

[Magallanes @ Jan 16th 2008 11:46AM]

And Sony didn't screw it up this time.

:3

[ryan @ Jan 16th 2008 1:02PM]

apparently Kim's lost his thesaurus

[ericdano @ Jan 16th 2008 1:32PM]

U-Verse is the biggest load of crap from AT&T. It is a poor man's Comcast. They cannot have it installed along with another AT&T service coming to the same address even though you might have more than one phone line. I know, my roomate got the TV part, and the DSL I have went down a week later, and took them 3 weeks to hook back up.

PLUS, the boxes AT&T gives you are crappy Motorola things, and you need this huge router to drive everything (we are talking a good foot long, 6 inches high and 10 inches deep router).

PLUS, you cannot get static IP from them over U-Verse.

[Jeff @ Jan 16th 2008 2:27PM]

The gateway is huge but poor man's Comcast is just plain stupid. I had Comcast and now have u-verse and love it. Since you mentioned Motorola's box did you ever notice that Comcast old box was more than twice the size of it and had less features. I am sure there are problems that will happen with a new service and that sucks they were so over booked you couldn't get your stuff hooked back up, but 3 hd boxes, 4 recordings at a single time dvr (comcast dvr was super loud to the point I had to return it, and att's makes zero noise) same speed internet (yes I know comcast offers higher speeds however you don't actually get faster download speeds than 6M) all for less money. I get the 400 package with hd and elite internet for the same price I paid for basic hd and internet with comcast.

[Valgas @ Jan 16th 2008 3:53PM]

AT&T breaks everything it touches.

[maryland157 @ Jan 16th 2008 4:48PM]

I think thats Verizons job , when they were putting up the Fios lines in Harferd County Maryland , they had to disconect the comcast's lines and they forget to reconect them...... they also messed up some of comcast's lines while digging.

[Valgas @ Jan 16th 2008 5:11PM]

AT&T is taking Verizon's spot really fast.

[aus @ Jan 16th 2008 4:51PM]

Verizon Fios all they way...

[Iridium @ Jan 16th 2008 5:07PM]

Maybe thats why the techs have come by each AT&T box to replace batteries lately. Actually I wish the box would explode since the service boxes have been installed for the past year but I still can't get the U-Verse service.

There's no point in saying a service exists in your area and install the system if people can't access it.