Pinnacles also recently installed digital switches that allow customers to choose among long-distance carriers, and it plans to introduce lines for high-speed Internet access within a year.

After all the sound and fury over air bags, only 18,000 people have requested permission to install on-off switches since the Government liberalized the rules in November.

A few days later, another crew will install switches, so that by this fall Verizon can start selling phone, broadband Internet and eventually video services in the neighborhood.

Install separate switches for smaller areas.

By the early 1990s, the CAPs began to install switches in their fiber systems.

The Transportation Department, agreeing that airbags sometimes do more harm than good, loosened the rules on installing on-off switches.

As an electrical mechanic, he said, he makes $27.50 an hour installing light switches and outlets.

Within the next two years the company also will install digital switches that triple the number of calls handled on current frequencies, he said.

The NCC argued that manufacturers should be allowed to install switches in automobiles so consumers can turn the airbags off.

They also want more manufacturers to install switches in video games that would allow parents to block parts of the action.