According to residents in the 8200 block of Clover Gardens Drive, the explosion shook one nearby house, damaged a fence and some siding, and destroyed several thousand dollars worth of telecom gear, including a DSLAM, installed as part of AT&T's Project Lightspeed.


While AT&T investigates, James Harrison, 79, says his property was damaged by the explosion and subsequent equipment fire. On his lot, a new section of fence stands where the old one was broken by flying debris. On the front of his house, next to the garage, the siding appears misaligned and one section near the roof has been twisted away from the house.




Closest to the street is a crossconnect box that was relatively unscathed by the DSLAM debris. Next to where the DSLAM used to be is a damaged pedestal, which supplied power to the DSLAM and the cabinet's cooling system.






Canadian firm Avestor, honored as an AT&T outstanding supplier in June, filed for bankruptcy on October 31. In a statement on its Website the company says: "Considerable sums were invested in developing a battery that could be marketed profitably to the telecommunications industry; nevertheless, the enterprise was not able to reach the break-even point... Consequently, it is no longer able to continue operations."
Whatever the cause of the explosion, Harrison recounts that his wife, Mabel, who was home when the DSLAM cabinet was destroyed, said the blast was significant and debris went in at least two different directions. "It went about 50 feet to the other side of the yard and some pieces of the box went down the street," he says. "It shook the house pretty good."

Within 24 hours of the DSLAM's demise, Harrison says an AT&T crew came and picked up the pieces, hauled off the debris, and wrapped the pitch where the equipment had been sited in orange protective netting. Since then, however, no one has been in touch with Harrison about the damage to his house and fence, or to say when the eyesore in his front yard will be cleaned up. "They're supposed to come back and tell us what happened, but nobody's come back," he told Light Reading on Sunday.
— Phil Harvey, News Editor, Light Reading, and Andrea Quezada, special to Light Reading
http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/waiheke-marketplace/4377118/Phone-lines-down
Story switches between network cabinet and transformer, so it's not clear what burned down.