The aftershocks of the 5.9 earthquake centered in Virginia that jostled the East Coast of the United States from North Carolina to Concord, New Hampshire , created more than a bit of excitement.

• Buildings in the nation’s capital, New York and other major cities swayed, with some being evacuated.
• Airline service up and down the coast was temporarily stopped
• Two nuclear power plants in Virginia were taken off line as a precaution
• Getting cellular service was a problem with major disruptions reported in the areas near the epicenter, but there are no reports of structural damage to network facilities by any of the major carriers. However, connection problems getting through have been a universal observation, although they are reported to be easing.

Here at TMCnet.com headquarters in Connecticut there was a very light shake. In fact, it was almost hard to notice. What was not easy to overlook was that once the new broke, getting through to anyone on a cellphone was trying. Admittedly anecdotal, members of the TMCnet staff had difficulties getting through on every single major cellphone provider. In fact, an hour after the first shock, one of my colleagues was still unable to contact a relative who lives near the quake epicenter in Richmond. Interestingly, wireline communications on telephone company and cable systems, obviously calling wired to wired, have not been disrupted.

The post-mortem on this event is likely going to confirm some things those of use in the industry have long suspected but now has been proved:

• Most people have cellphones and it is their communications device of choice to use in an emergency. Hence, along with whatever structural damage may or may not have occurred to cell sites and backhaul capabilities, the traffic load exceeded the networks’ ability to accommodate everyone seeking to contact loved ones.
• Data communications have been unaffected. Not a surprise given both how they are carried physically and how they are routed.

As details of how all of the communications networks in this part of the world have worked during this emergency become clearer, there are likely to be many more lessons that emerge. For instance, how was text messaging impacted on wireless devices? Would 4G networks provide a more reliable way to communicate given the ability to rely on VoIP services for voice communications and in theory route around problems better? Are the assumptions made about peak traffic and traffic engineering for wired as well as wireless networks up to the task of functioning properly in a wide-spread outage?

With Hurricane Irene heading toward the same areas just hit, let’s hope these questions do not become more pressing. We will be back with more news on the impact of the quake as it emerges.

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Peter Bernstein is a technology industry veteran, having worked in multiple capacities with several of the industry's biggest brands, including Avaya, Alcatel-Lucent, Telcordia, HP, Siemens (News - Alert), Nortel, France Telecom, and others, and having served on the Advisory Boards of 15 technology startups. To read more of Peter's work, please visit his columnist page.