Worst of Cell Phone Disruptions Is Yet to Come, FCC Says

Communications networks held up better than expected against Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said in a Sunday afternoon briefing, with the greatest swathe of outages reported by cable TV subscribers in North Carolina.

On Sunday afternoon the FCC reported that 130,000 wirelines were down, 1,398 cell sites were out of servicess, 1,093 cell sites were running on backup power, and 500,000 cable service subscribers couldn't get service.

But Admiral James Barnett said the FCC was expecting cell phone outages to get worse as the battery backups for affected cell sites ran out.

"It actually could get worse even though the storm has passed, because some of the cell sites working now are working on backup power," Barnett said. If the carriers can't re-provision these sites in time, outages will continue, he said.

"Just because there's no storm doesn't mean there won't be further [communications] problems," he said.

So far, the FCC said cell phone outages were concentrated in the worst-hit states of Virginia, North Carolina, and Maryland.

In Virginia, 18 percent of cell sites were down, compared to 14 percent in North Carolina, and 11 percent in Maryland. However in some coastal counties, like Lenoir, Greene and Carteret counties of North Carolina, 50 percent to 90 percent of cell towers were offline.

Furthermore there were no reports of 9-1-1 emergency center outages, the chairman was "pleased to report."

AT&T on Sunday tweeted that it has begun repairs to damage along the coast.

"Work has already begun in North Carolina, Virginia, Washington DC, Delaware, Maryland, & New Jersey, where the worst of the storm has passed," @AT&T wrote.

Verizon's @VZWnews tweeted that it was providing affected residents in North Carolina with charging stations in all its retail stores.

T-Mobile reported 85 percent of its network was operational, and that "disaster response teams have been deployed."

On Friday, all four of the major carriers said they had made preparations for Irene, like moving more fuel to power backup batteries.

The FCC had not yet consolidated reports of outages above Maryland, though on Saturday afternoon it reported that in New York City, only one percent of cell phone towers were disrupted.

Admiral Barnett also urged people to heed the FCC's tips on communicating during an emergency, which includes advice like limiting non-emergency calls to minimize overall network congestion, using text messages instead of voice, and forwarding landline calls to your cell phone in case of a power outage.

Source:http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2391983,00.asp?kc=PCRSS05039TX1K0000762