I remember it clearly. It was the first evening of the Northeast Blackout of 2003 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Blackout_of_2003 http://en.wikipedia.o

I remember it clearly. It was the first evening of the Northeast Blackout of 2003 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Blackout_of_2003 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Blackout_of_2003] and I was working in NYC. My wife had gone to her parents, and I wanted to phone her to say that all was well. All the cellphone towers were either without power, or overloaded. But the good old payphones just kept working. It really is useful that telcos maintained their own power network. I wonder if this is still the case?