Sandy slams mobile, wired and cable networks as far west as Michigan

October 31, 2012

Post-Tropical Cyclone Sandy knocked out mobile, phone and cable service in many parts of the eastern U.S. on Monday, with about one in four cell sites affected in the hardest-hit band of the country between Virginia and Massachusetts, according to an FCC estimate. About 25 percent of the cell sites in the 10-state area were out of service at 10 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission estimated. Due to the floods, high winds and snow brought by the storm, there were reports of outages as far west as Michigan, the agency said. The situation could become worse in some areas as backup power supplies for affected cell sites run out, it warned. A small number of 911 call centers went out of service, and calls to them were redirected to other 911 facilities, an FCC representative said on Tuesday. Some of those redirected calls came across without location information, and the FCC is investigating that problem, the representative said. Service-provider report card Service providers were still evaluating the effects of the wide-ranging storm late Tuesday. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Link: http://www.techhive.com/article/2013335/sandy-slams-mobile-wired-and-cable-networks-as-far-west-as-michigan.html