Just stumbled along this stream and can't help smiling at some of the comments here by the pro aliant crowd who obviously understand how eastlinks system runs not at all.
first there is a 24 hr response that we are obligated to meet if there is a phone outage and you will only wait that long if there are some major issues going on.
second, Yes there is a battery back up in case of power outages, all these back ups are monitered and if there is an outage technicians are deployed with generators to keep the system running untill power is restored(and before the pro aliants can speak hurricane juan was an eye opener that led to these policies)
third eastlinks new design which is being implimented quite quickly has fiber as its main backbone and to coax feeding I believe no more than 75 customers, and has eliminated the need for active equipment in the system giving the next best thing to fiber to the home.(look up the bandwidth limitations for twisted pair as compared to co-axial cable, there is a reason they haven't offered a decent cable package yet)
fourth yes not all the channels are digitized yet due to the fact that not everybody has a TV that can receive digital cable without it being remodulated to basic RF even your satellite dishes still have to do this,
Eastlink is by no means without its faults but Bluenosers have been lucky enough to live in a province that has led the way in Broadband services. Eastlink was a pioneer in North America with some very big players watching to see if the little cable company could compete with the big boys... well go look at the market shares for Hfx and stop listening to some of the aliant propaganda and try something new.

well thanks for letting me get that off my chest.