Outage Has Little Impact on Landline Telephone System for New York Region.

Newsday, Melville, N.Y. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

Aug. 15--Cell phones worked sporadically at best, and many people found themselves scurrying to find traditional corded phones, but the core landline telephone network pulled through yesterday's regional blackout with nary a hitch.

Verizon Communications Inc. said the telephone system covering the entire metropolitan New York region and upstate was largely unaffected by the outage. That's because massive battery systems that back up commercial energy sources took over seamlessly when power went