Los Angeles Communications

The earthquake sent shock waves through Southern California's business community Monday, crippling transportation and communications, damaging factories and idling thousand of workers. Companies in the San Fernando Valley were hit hardest by the magnitude 6.6 quake, with many firms forced to close because of damage or lack of phones and electricity. Some of the hardest hit: * Rockwell International Corp.'

Once the fences are removed, the hotel rooms freed up and the balloons and confetti swept away, Los Angeles will have at least one long-term benefit from hosting this week's Democratic National Convention: improved mobile phone service. In anticipation of the cell phone-crazed hordes (media, delegates, support employees and politicos), all five of the region's major wireless carriers beefed up their networks to expand coverage and increase capacity for the convention.

A Sept. 2 hearing on controversial area code overlays in the 818 and 310 calling areas has been postponed two weeks to allow Public Utilities Commission members more time to study the issue, officials said Friday. The delay was called by PUC Commissioner Joel Hyatt, who wants to further consider the effects of overlays on residents and business owners, and to mull alternative area code relief plans, officials said.

Los Angeles City Councilman Alex Padilla, whose recommendations on the hotly contested issue of high-speed Internet access on city-franchised cable lines have been awaited for months, said Monday that he will ask his colleagues to join him in demanding that cable companies provide open access as a condition of their agreements with the city. If accepted by the council, Padilla's proposal would represent a major shift in the way Los Angeles regulates cable companies.

State utilities regulators on Thursday are expected to hear three area code relief backup plans in case number-conservation measures fail to keep pace with demand for new numbers in the San Fernando Valley. The state Public Utilities Commission will consider the proposals at its regular monthly meeting at 10 a.m. at the Junipero Serra State Building in downtown Los Angeles.

City Councilman Marvin Braude this week called on communications companies to work with the city to build a telecommunications system for Los Angeles. The system would provide the utility infrastructure for telephone, cable television, teleconferencing and computer services. On Tuesday, the councilman sent a letter to telephone, cable television and other companies encouraging them to send in opinions and proposals on how the system should be set up.

How it works A communications network would be based on a satellite placed in orbit and used by residents with cellular telephones. It would replace the current system of ground-based phone lines. Benefits The satellite would eliminate reliance on land-line networks, which are vulnerable to earthquake and other disasters. Short-term or Long-term Impact Some experts believe such satellites will be lofted by the end of this decade.

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday agreed to hire an engineering firm to make repairs that are supposed to prevent the 911 emergency telephone system from failing in a catastrophe. The unanimous vote came after at least five years of reports of potential problems and several near-failures of the system, according to city reports.

Smoke from looters' fires is being blamed for preventing Los Angeles television viewers from seeing official city emergency rioting bulletins until after the uprisings subsided. The thick smoke blacked out a City Hall-run TV channel from Wednesday night until midafternoon Friday, silencing official proclamations about curfew hours, gasoline and ammunition sales and emergency information about such things as public bus schedules and school closures, officials said.

Barring some natural disaster to shake up the voters before Election Day, backers of a Los Angeles ballot proposition to raise taxes for a new 911 system are predicting a difficult road to passage. "I'm not quite sure what could happen between now and then that could turn the tide," said James McDermott, the political consultant who is running the campaign for the 911 measure, called Proposition J. "Maybe if we have an earthquake and nobody can get through."

State utilities regulators on Thursday are expected to hear three area code relief backup plans in case number-conservation measures fail to keep pace with demand for new numbers in the San Fernando Valley. The state Public Utilities Commission will consider the proposals at its regular monthly meeting at 10 a.m. at the Junipero Serra State Building in downtown Los Angeles.

A Sept. 2 hearing on controversial area code overlays in the 818 and 310 calling areas has been postponed two weeks to allow Public Utilities Commission members more time to study the issue, officials said Friday. The delay was called by PUC Commissioner Joel Hyatt, who wants to further consider the effects of overlays on residents and business owners, and to mull alternative area code relief plans, officials said.

On Thursday, the state Public Utilities Commission will decide whether to temporarily suspend the 310 overlay area code in West Los Angeles to allow time for further review. The move is in response to a petition filed by state Assemblyman Wally Knox (D-Los Angeles), who has asked the PUC to halt the overlay altogether. Under a plan begun earlier this year, callers in the 310 region began dialing all calls using 11 digits--1 plus the area code and the number--even for calls within 310.

By next spring, residents who want to call Los Angeles police about a cat stuck in a tree, to complain about a parking ticket or any other nonemergency matter will be able to dial a toll-free number. The City Council allocated $415,000 this week for creation of a toll-free Los Angeles Police Department number. The LAPD has eight nonemergency phone numbers, said Lt. John Egan, who is overseeing the effort. The old LAPD numbers will eventually be reduced.

City Councilman Marvin Braude this week called on communications companies to work with the city to build a telecommunications system for Los Angeles. The system would provide the utility infrastructure for telephone, cable television, teleconferencing and computer services. On Tuesday, the councilman sent a letter to telephone, cable television and other companies encouraging them to send in opinions and proposals on how the system should be set up.

They bolted in a piece of the information superhighway up the block from Rick Campbell's house in Reseda last week. Actually, they wanted to put it in his back yard, but he demurred. "It's five feet high and six feet long and two feet deep," Campbell explained. "Hank came by and told us how this was the infohighway we've heard about on TV and commercials. Which is great, but I just didn't feel comfortable with it along my fence there." Hank, whose last name is Sheets, was accommodating.

One of the unexpected results of the Jan. 17 earthquake is a new television channel. It's called the Recovery Channel, and it represents the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) most ambitious use of television to distribute information to assist those impacted by a natural disaster.

They bolted in a piece of the information superhighway up the block from Rick Campbell's house in Reseda last week. Actually, they wanted to put it in his back yard, but he demurred. "It's five feet high and six feet long and two feet deep," Campbell explained. "Hank came by and told us how this was the infohighway we've heard about on TV and commercials. Which is great, but I just didn't feel comfortable with it along my fence there." Hank, whose last name is Sheets, was accommodating.

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday agreed to hire an engineering firm to make repairs that are supposed to prevent the 911 emergency telephone system from failing in a catastrophe. The unanimous vote came after at least five years of reports of potential problems and several near-failures of the system, according to city reports.

During the past few days, hundreds of calls to Los Angeles city offices in the San Fernando Valley, including non-emergency police calls, have gone unanswered because of human error and technical breakdowns in the city's phone system, officials said Monday. The phone problems began Friday when the city eliminated five different prefixes for city offices in the Valley and replaced them with one prefix, 756. But instead of simplifying the system, the change--at least temporarily--created chaos.