Communications Failed Across Nor Cal In Safety Blackout
Written by 991KBU on October 22, 2019
Cellphone customers in northern California were cut off when massive sections of the state were blacked out for fire danger.
This … after the FCC and state government have asked the cell companies what their emergency power capabilities are.
Last week … huge sections of California lost emergency communications … regular communications … data… cable service.
The research group OpenSignal said more than 10% of subscribers in urban areas lost connections to high-speed cell networks in urban areas.
But rural areas may have fared worse.
Regardless of the numbers, for those who lost connections as well as power, it added to their feelings of isolation and fear that in an emergency they wouldn’t be able to reach loved ones or call 911.
T-Mobile told the San Francisco Chronicle that a “relatively small” number of sites were down during the outage.
But they declined to give the exact number and locations.
Verizon said the company kept at least 97% of its sites serving customers during the outage.
But that’s state wide .. most of California did not have outages … and three percent of sites lost could mean entire sections of the state lost service.
AT and T blamed the power company … and said that “like all&E customers, we are also affected by this power shutdown.
Before the power outage began … AT&T deployed resources from other states to support customers and public safety, including staging hundreds of additional generators and equipment, and actively refueled generators.
During the outage, ATT provided unlimited calls, texts and data and waived overage charges to customers in affected areas.
But the big issue … will one company allow customers of another company to use their equipment to contact the outside world.
If only for emergency messages,
The biggest cable and internet provider in Northern California basically threw up its hands.
Comcast reported that its network centers were down in every area affected by an outage.
“The honest answer is we require electricity just like everyone else. When that source gets cut off, we’re cut off,” spokeswoman Joan Hammel told the Chronicle.
