This is indicative of a poorly designed network (Score 1)

Doesn't this indicate a serious lack of a reasonable network design on AT&T's part? There are technologies available (SONET rings, etc) which prevent cuts like this from causing outages by setting up redundant paths. I worked as an engineer in telecom for several years, and it was my belief that all the major carriers deployed essentially bulletproof networks, and made good use of the available technology (and this was 12 years ago!). I guess I was wrong!