valve regulated lead acid battery AT&T to replace batteries after explosions and fires

New york (Reuters )-AT&T Inc (T.
N) it said on Wednesday it will replace 17,000 batteries, which are mainly used for its U-
There were two fires and two explosions in more than a year.
The company said the incidents did not hurt anyone and that replacing the batteries in the outdoor telecom equipment cabinet would not change its spending plan of £ 2008.
The communications company said the incidents did cause some damage to the property around them, but did not provide details immediately.
Spokesman Michael Coe said the battery is now available
Avestor, the company that filed for bankruptcy in October 2006, went bankrupt before and after AT&T found the battery's first accident.
He said AT&T decided to replace the battery after the last accident occurred in December 2007.
"Usually in this case. . .
"In the event that we have four accidents, we will diagnose the problem with the supplier," Coe said . ".
"We can't do this in this case because the company is out of business and that's why we decided to replace all of these batteries.
Coe said AT&T stopped installing lithium. metal-
Polymer batteries from Avestor in the first quarter of 2007.
After the first accident, AT&T continued to use the battery as the third accident
Coe said party investigators say the risk of dangerous failures is equally low even if it is not lower than similar batteries used by municipalities and other telephone companies. The biggest U. S.
The telephone company says it has about 400,000 networks.
Battery used to keep the phone service running in the event of a commercial power outage.
AT&T will use some nickel-based cadmium batteries and some valve-based batteries
Regulated Lead acid as a substitute.
It says replacing the 17,000 battery won't make U-verse’s roll-
The services provided to existing customers will not be affected.
The telephone company began to provide U-
Compete with cable companies in the 2005 s. Last year U-
The Verse service fails after the company loads new software.
As of the third quarter, the service had about 126,000 customers.