Hurricanes Are Coming - Can You Hear Me Now… (glug glug glug)?
Wireless phone providers have just about recovered from the last hurricane season. Here comes the next one.
How much better prepared are they? Answer is, we won’t know until after the storms have hit. An Associated Press writeup offers post-Katrina kudos to Cellular South. Based in Jackson, Mississippi, Cell South says its network was 60 percent operational one day after Katrina. Cell South says it’s investing $78 million in new cell sites, including 40 new ones in south Mississippi.
But first responders in the Gulf seem to be putting a lot of their trust in satellite phones as the communications provider of last resort. (You can rent one, if you’re so inclined, for as little as $20 a week.) Mississippi’s governor Haley Barbour will probably go that route; he indicates communications after Katrina in parts of Mississippi were about as good as they were during the Civil War.
For its part Cingular says it’s spending $1.8 billion on its system in the Southeast, with 800 new cell sites coming and $60 million to be spent just on hurricane preparation. For many phone service providers the issue over the long haul was the lack of electricity. Verizon says it’s trying to connect as many of its generators as possible to natural gas lines or big propane tanks that will last longer than diesel generators. Likewise Sprint Nextel is spending a big chunk of its $100 million in hurricane prep money on beefed-up cell tower generators, permanent and portable.
But if you live in the Gulf you may want to do some wireless phone storm preparation of your own; having some spare batteries and keeping them charged isn’t a bad idea. Program in emergency numbers and be prepared to text message - when voice circuits are jammed, texting may be the only way to go.
Resources: Verizon Wireless Cingular Cellular South
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