Phone Service During Emergencies

As most of us know, an emergency that disrupts the power grid or physical structure of the telephone system will cause mass communication outages. The standard phone system requires physical connections which must remain intact, and the cellular system can barely keep up with the demand for services at high volume times as it is. A cellular technician friend tells me that many of the cell circuits may already be in poor repair due to maintenance cuts.

The POTS phone system (Plain Old Telephone Service) that you may still have hardwired to your homes, if still intact, will continue to work when the power fails because the telephone land lines are battery powered from the telephone Central Offices. So if you have an old fashioned phone plugged into the wall, and I highly recommend you do, you may still have phone service in an emergency as long as the phone company batteries last.

If you rely on cell phones or Internet based services like Skype and the power grid is disrupted, you probably won't have service until the grid is restored. If you can't get cellular voice service, try text messaging. Because text messages are sent in short bursts, something they can get through when voice communications can't.

Even though we never use it for regular calls, my wife and I keep an older hardwired phone pluged into a phone jack. We chose the AT&T Princess phone because the handset lights up when off the hook and we can see the push buttons in the dark, and it has a smaller footprint on my desk. We saved one from an older service precisely for this purpose.

If you have a cordless phone system, I recommend you at least plug the master phone station (the one that broadcasts to the other handsets) into a UPS (uninterruptable Power Supply) like the ones sold for computer use. Then, if your power goes out but the phone lines are still working, you'll have at least a few minutes of communication time before the UPS runs out of charge.

Getting dial tone or a connection during an emergency is another problem entirely. There aren't enough phone lines or switches or data capacity to handle the increased demand during an emergency because the first thing everyone will want to do is pick up a phone and call their homes and loved ones to find out if they are safe. The system, if it works at all, won't be able to handle the demand and will probably crash.

Services nearest the disaster will obviously be affected the most, so of your phone works at all, you probably won't be able to place a local call. But if you can get a dial tone, you may be able to place a long distance call to an area away from the disaster. That's why it's a good idea for families to have a contact number some distance away -- perhaps with a friend or family member that lives in another state. If you can't make local calls, but can reach your out of state contact number, you can leave messages for your family and loved ones.

The FCC is aware of this problem and may be acting to do something about it. The phone companies, of course, are fighting it.

And remember, when all else fails, Amateur Radio works.

Moderator

Here's an article from the Associated Press:

CELL PHONE TOWERS

Wireless carriers fight FCC rules to add backup power for cell phone towers

By David Twiddy
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Monday, March 10, 2008

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - When Hurricane Katrina assaulted the Gulf Coast in 2005, winds and flooding knocked out hundreds of cell towers and cell sites, silencing wireless communication when emergency crews and victims needed it.

To avoid similar debacles in the future, the Federal Communications Commission wants most cell transmitter sites to have at least eight hours of backup power.

More than 2 1/2 years after Katrina hit and eight months after the FCC's regulations were released, the agency and the industry are still wrestling over the issue.

A federal appeals court has put the regulations on hold while it considers an appeal by some in the wireless industry.

Although several cell phone companies agree that their networks need to be more resilient, they have opposed the FCC's regulations, claiming that they were illegally drafted and would present a huge economic and bureaucratic burden.

There are almost 210,000 cell towers and roof-mounted cell sites across the country, and carriers say many would require modification to meet the regulations. At least one industry estimate puts the per-site price tag at as much as $15,000.

In asking the FCC to delay the change, Sprint Nextel Corp. said the rules would lead to "staggering and irreparable harm" for the company. Jackie McCarthy, director of governmental affairs for PCIA-The Wireless Infrastructure Association, said the government should allow the industry to decide how best to keep its networks running, pointing out that backup power can't help a cell tower that has been destroyed by wind or wildfires.

"Our members' position is that the 'one size fits all' approach to requiring eight hours of backup power at all cell sites really doesn't accomplish the commission's stated purpose of providing reliable wireless coverage," McCarthy said.

The wireless carriers are also claiming that the FCC failed to follow federal guidelines for creating new mandates and went far beyond its authority when it created the eight-hour requirement.

FCC officials have so far stood their ground. "We find that the benefits of ensuring sufficient emergency backup power, especially in times of crisis involving possible loss of life or injury, outweighs the fact that carriers may have to spend resources, perhaps even significant resources, to comply with the rule," the agency said in a regulatory filing.

"The need for backup power in the event of emergencies has been made abundantly clear by recent events, and the cost of failing to have such power may be measured in lives lost," it said.

A panel of experts appointed by the FCC after Katrina was critical of how communications networks performed during and after the storm. The group noted that service restoration was "a long and slow process."

Panel members recommended that the FCC work with telecommunications companies to make their networks more robust. Regulators then created the eight-hour mandate, exempting carriers with fewer than 500,000 subscribers.

Wireless companies called the regulations arbitrary and said they would rob them of the flexibility to target backup power upgrades at the most important or most vulnerable sites.

They also said local zoning rules, existing leases and structural limitations could make it impossible to add batteries or backup generators to cell sites.

Miles Schreiner, director of national operations planning for T-Mobile, said it can take 1,500 pounds of batteries to provide eight hours of backup energy in areas with a lot of cell phone traffic.

"In urban areas, most of the sites are on rooftops, and those sites weren't built to hold that much weight," Schreiner said.

The FCC agreed in October to exempt cell sites from the rules if the wireless carrier proves that the exemption is necessary.

Companies would have six months to submit those reports and then another six months to bring the sites into compliance or explain how they would provide backup service to those areas through other means.

CTIA-The Wireless Association and several carriers asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to intervene, saying the exemptions would still leave companies scrambling to inspect and compile reports on thousands of towers.

On Feb. 28, the court granted Sprint Nextel's request to stay the regulations while the case moves forward.

Verizon Wireless is not a party to the appeal and has a history of installing backup generators and batteries to its cell sites. Most famously, during a 2003 blackout that kept much of the Northeast in the dark for hours, Verizon customers could still communicate.

AT&T, the nation's largest wireless carrier, would not comment on the FCC regulations.