from: Broadband Reports [1]

AT&T Replacing 17,000 U-Verse Batteries
Apparently the units aren't supposed to spontaneously combust....

10:46AM Tuesday Jan 15 2008 by Karl

Last October, an internal battery malfunction caused an AT&T U-Verse VRAD to explode in the Houston suburbs, sending shrapnel hurling fifty feet throughout the neighborhood. "At this point, we have not concluded that the Avestor batteries pose any threat to the public or our employees," said AT&T in August [2]. That was then, this is now.

AT&T is now stating that they'll be replacing 17,000 VRAD Avestor batteries [3] across their entire U-Verse footprint. This from an AT&T spokesman:

Normally, we would work with a vendor to diagnose problems and develop solutions. We can't do that in this case because Avestor filed for bankruptcy in October 2006 and closed shortly thereafter. As a result, we have decided to move forward with the removal of all Avestor batteries as quickly as possible.

The incident in Houston wasn't the only one. Save Access [4] points to another cabinet that exploded on Christmas morning in Wisconsin. In all, there were four such incidents over the past two years. AT&T is not saying how long it will take them to replace all the batteries or how much it will cost.