Hurricanes and Cell Phone Networks: What to Expect After the Storm
With this morning's landfall of Hurricane Irene near North Carolina's Cape Lookout, the news coverage of the storm is gearing up. Here's what you need to understand about cell phone networks and hurricanes.
Most people don't realize it, but cell phone networks depend upon the local electric utility and the local landline phone company both being up and running.
If electricity goes out, all cell phone companies have back up batteries to operate their cell sites. Those batteries will typically last between 4-8 hours depending on the level of voice and data traffic the cell site is processing. The more traffic that goes through, the less time the battery will operate.
To supplement those back up batteries, companies often deploy back up portable diesel generators to cell sites whose back up batteries are spent.
As a further safeguard to power outages, in hurricane-prone areas, cell phone companies have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to install permanent back up diesel generators that kick in automatically if power is disrupted. These generators usually have enough fuel to last about 6-8 hours. Again, the more voice and data traffic going through the site, the less time the generator can operate before refueling is needed.
Cell phone companies also depend on the local landline phone company to connect cell sites to the publicly switched telephone network. If the landline guys are down, your cell phone will not work. It's very possible that your wireless carrier has all of its cell sites up and running, yet still may have service disruptions because the landline companies are down.
Landline companies, also depend of electricity to operate, and they also have a network of backup generators in place. Sometimes storms knock out the circuits which connect towers to the landline network. When that happens, it's the landline company's job to make the repair. Your wireless carrier can't address that issue. So if you can't use your cell phone during or in the aftermath of Irene, don't assume your wireless carrier is at fault. It could be there are issues with the landline company.
But back to the diesel generators. You need to understand that neither the landline phone company or your wireless company will send technicians to refuel these generators or to do any repair work on their respective networks until the storm has passed and it's safe for employees. No one is going to ask their employees to put their safety in jeopardy so you can make a phone call.
In some storms, where there is extreme flooding, the roads to cell sites are impassable, making it impossible to refuel generators until floodwaters subside. While we saw this across Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina. But that's unlikely to be a widespread problem with Hurricane Irene. But as long as roads are passable, wireless carriers have systems in place to make sure these diesel generators are continually refueled until local power is restored.
One thing that you don't need to worry about are hurricane winds toppling towers. They are built to withstand that. In certain big storms -- Category 4 or 5 -- winds may damage antennas on the towers, but even that is unusual.
The other thing you need to be reassured about is that the power company and the local landline company work closely with your wireless carrier to share information and quickly restore service. Meeting the needs of wireless carriers is a top priority as they work to restore power and landline service.
Lastly, I'll share an observation based on my 6 years of experience in working with media covering hurricanes and cell phone network disruptions. When it comes to hurricanes disrupting service, the wireless networks of all the carriers generally perform at roughly the same level in the immediate aftermath of a storm. If Verizon is out in one area, so is AT&T, so is T-Mobile and so is Sprint.
On more than one occasion, I've seen a competitor mislead the media into thinking otherwise. One company's favorite PR trick is to report on the level of service disruption by state. Later this morning, they will likely issue a news release claiming that 95 percent of their network in NC is up and running. (Well of course it is! There are 100 counties in NC and only 20 are in Hurricane Irene's path and most of those 20 counties are very rural. Remember, wireless companies have towers were people live. My guess is that 90 percent of North Carolinians will not be impacted by Irene at all.)
When you look closely though, you will see that the wireless networks experience outages in the same places at the same times. And all the wireless carriers and landline phone companies, along with the electric utility companies, will be working tirelessly to restore service as soon as possible.
I keep hoping that a reporter somewhere will call out our competitor for their deceptive claims, but in the 6 years I've been working with media covering these storms, it's only happened once.
With all the massive media coverage of Hurricane Irene, maybe that will change.
