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January Ice Storm: western KY: AT&T no service

Discussion in 'GENERAL Wireless Discussion' started by NoBite, Feb 10, 2009.

  1. NoBite

    NoBite Junior Member
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    I am not sure where this post belongs, so I'll try general discussion.

    Part of the central US just experienced an epic ice storm. In western KY thousands are still without power, over two weeks since the ice thawed. At one point, over 700,000 families in KY alone were without power. Other states were also severely affected.

    During the storm, land lines went down. Cell service went down and is still on and off, especially for AT&T customers. But, Verizon customers maintained service throughout, at least for Verizon-to-Verizon calls.

    Why could one carrier maintain service and another lose service? I asked this of AT&T today. They pled ignorance! However, they did credit my account $25 for the service interruption. Several of my friends also called, complained and got the $25 credit. But, in a crisis situation, AT&T was NOT there for us! I would like to know why their service failed and Verizon's did not.
     
    #1 NoBite, Feb 10, 2009
  2. CellGeek

    CellGeek Sprint is the BOMB!
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    Verizon will tell you "It's the Network". :)


     
    #2 CellGeek, Feb 10, 2009
  3. RadioFoneGuy

    RadioFoneGuy Powered by HTC FUZE
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    could be alot of different factors involved. Outages are taken very seriously by the carriers and ones of that magnitude have to be reported to the FCC.

    You have to take in account power outages, backhaul lines, microwave links. Its possilbe AT&T go hit harder on one of the about 3 reasons.
     
    #3 RadioFoneGuy, Feb 10, 2009
    1 person likes this.
  4. NoBite

    NoBite Junior Member
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    Okay. This was so widespread and noteworthy that I am sure the FCC is aware. So, do you think AT&T will make a public statement? Are there measures they can take to minimize this occurrence in the future?
     
    #4 NoBite, Feb 11, 2009
  5. Matt

    Matt Twin girls!
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    Is Verizon the dominant landline company out there? That may be part of the reason that their cell customers maintained service. In any event, I'm not sure the FCC will get involved, as there's no requirement that cell sites must be available all the time, throughout long power outages. I think there may have been a requirement for carriers to add some sort of backup power to some of their sites, but when the problems go on for days or days it's too expensive for the carriers to set up for it being used once every 10 years or so.
     
    Stop hovering to collapse... Click to collapse... Hover to expand... Click to expand...
    #5 Matt, Feb 11, 2009
  6. NoBite

    NoBite Junior Member
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    No, they are not. Probably an even split with AT&T to determine #1.
     
    #6 NoBite, Feb 11, 2009
  7. cwgladstone

    cwgladstone New Member

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    I would assume it would be a question of whom had backup power on the sites and who did not.
     
    #7 cwgladstone, Feb 20, 2009
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