The soon-to-arrive tropical storm Gustav is expected to put U.S. wireless carriers to the test on their networks’ preparedness to handle a natural calamity.
Many companies were criticized and given regulatory norms after Hurricane Katrina took out communication networks.
“Certainly there were lessons to be learned from Katrina,” Verizon (
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Alert) Wireless spokeswoman Gretchen LeJeune said. “Preparation for bad weather has been at the top of mind and we prepare for it all year.”
Verizon is said to have spent $137 million to improve its Gulf of Mexico-area network infrastructure, doubling its capacity at regional switching centers to handle a barrage of calls when disaster strikes.
AT&T (
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Alert) has said that its have replaced copper wirings with optical wiring and water proofed vulnerable one in the flood zones. Copper wirings tend to cut off if they are wet.
It is said that Gustav could be a communications challenge for emergency responders too, who are separated by incompatible networks. The Federal Communications Commission wanted to tackle that problem by setting aside radio spectrum to be operated by a private company for a national emergency network, but the spectrum band failed to find a bidder in an auction this year.
Gustav is forecast to hit Louisiana coast at the beginning of next week.
As this happens, wireless companies face a major challenge in providing continuous power to their cell towers. The cell towers are built in such a way to withstand the furious winds of a hurricane but their power has to come through landline power cables.
To overcome this problem, the FCC issued a regulation for wireless companies to have at least eight hours of continuous backup power in case of main power failure. But that was contested in courts by wireless industry association CTIA, Sprint (
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Even though AT&T and Verizon claim to be prepared for a storm, they say that they did not contest the FCC regulation but they are members of CTIA (
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Alert). T-Mobile is yet to make any formal statement on its readiness to face the expected hurricane.
Verizon Wireless said all of its cell sites have batteries that will power them for at least eight hours. Many of them also have generators that kick in when the batteries run down, and have fuel for five to seven days, according to LeJeune.
“Of the 59 new cell sites Verizon Wireless has set up in the Gulf Coast area since the start of 2007, 85 percent have their own generators,” she said.
Nathesh is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Nathesh's articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Michael Dinan
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