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Cellular Phone Forum / General / General Topics / August 2003NY Blackout and Cell Usage
I'm curious to see what cell companies, (Verizon, Nextel, etc.) continued to have service in the affected areas during the black out and who did not. Thanks in advance. > I'm curious to see what cell companies, (Verizon, Nextel, etc.) continued to > have service in the affected areas during the black out and who did not. > Thanks in advance. They all worked, but almost all were overloaded at some time or other during the first couple of hours. John Exactly same observations based on 4-5 hours in a crowd waiting for ferry to NJ. No clear winner, all overloaded loosers. My A530 could get incomming calls and SMS from ATTWS GSM. But nothing would go out. Full bars all the time. "John Filangeri" <JohnFilangeri@worldnet.att.net> wrote in article <TRV_a.100828$0v4.6963169@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>: > > I'm curious to see what cell companies, (Verizon, Nextel, etc.) continued > to [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > John My NEXTEL contact advised that the 8 HR battery capacity is being taxed at all of the sites although the NE switch facilities and the sites that are on generator are still running. He says that the system should until run to about midnight and then go dark as the batteries will be history. They are deploying mobile generators to key sites also, but being they are doing damage control he couldn't advise much more. With what I know about the site designs of a good number of the providers, if the sites aren't on generators they will go 4 to 8 hours before going away.  SignatureMark KS4VT <David> wrote in article <vjo6is39cj852e@corp.supernews.com>: > I'm curious to see what cell companies, (Verizon, Nextel, etc.) continued to > have service in the affected areas during the black out and who did not. > Thanks in advance. >My NEXTEL contact advised that the 8 HR battery capacity is being taxed >at all of the sites although the NE switch facilities and the sites that >are on generator are still running. That's hardly worthwhile if all of the RF sites are on UPS and have no climate control. >He says that the system should until run to about midnight and then go >dark as the batteries will be history. They are deploying mobile >generators to key sites also, but being they are doing damage control he >couldn't advise much more. My area wasn't affected (this time), but we have our share of blackouts due to inclement weather. It's been my experience that sites with generator jacks and minimal UPS backup have to be a business priority for restoration. If a whole city is dark and there are three technicians with maybe six generators, they go where the most potential for revenue is. For us public safety types, the maxim "If 'cellular' is your backup, you have no backup" still applies. >With what I know about the site designs of a good number of the >providers, if the sites aren't on generators they will go 4 to 8 hours >before going away. Ny Nextel contact (:o) added that climate control systems aren't backed up. Even if they had batteries in the enclosure the site may alarm out and go off-line because the limit thresholds for temperature have been exceeded. Steve > I'm curious to see what cell companies, (Verizon, Nextel, etc.) continued to > have service in the affected areas during the black out and who did not. > Thanks in advance. I just called a friend in NYC. He's using AT&Ts GSM service. The first try, I got an all circuits are busy message. The call went through the second time with no problem. He said his Blackberry, using Nextel, worked just fine. He said calls were not always completed, but for the most part everything worked. Hopper I don't know about anyone Else but i know VZW is online <David> wrote in article <vjo6is39cj852e@corp.supernews.com>: > I'm curious to see what cell companies, (Verizon, Nextel, etc.) continued to > have service in the affected areas during the black out and who did not. > Thanks in advance. It was Fri, 15 Aug 2003 01:18:39 -0000, and chrisgowen@starband.net (Chris Gowen) wrote in alt.cellular: | I don't know about anyone Else but i know VZW is online And VZW has already released a press release bragging ... JL > It was Fri, 15 Aug 2003 01:18:39 -0000, and chrisgowen@starband.net > (Chris Gowen) wrote in alt.cellular: > | I don't know about anyone Else but i know VZW is online The towers were fine...I had a signal. But the paths to landlines were overloaded. And calling a vzw customer right across from me at the same table resulted in Calling...for six or seven attempts and then when I could finally get a channel to the tower it would ring thru to his voicemail. Calls to me were like that for several hours. There were obviously lots of vzw customers all tryin to call ot get called at the same time in my area....lol Alltel and attws seemed unaffected. I am in Northeast Ohio and was in a black part of Summit County at the time. Text messaging from vzw to vzw failed as well, but I guess thats to be expected...lol It was at least two hours before my phone would ring from a landline and even then it was spotty due to overload. And how many zillions of the calls were totally a waist of cell tower time. At a time like that, everyone should stay off the friggin phone unless it's a REAL emergency. But NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, lets tie it all up with inane conversations. > > It was Fri, 15 Aug 2003 01:18:39 -0000, and chrisgowen@starband.net > > (Chris Gowen) wrote in alt.cellular: [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > It was at least two hours before my phone would ring from a landline and > even then it was spotty due to overload. > And how many zillions of the calls were totally a waist of cell tower time. > At a time like that, everyone should stay off the friggin phone unless it's > a REAL emergency. > But NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, lets tie it all up with inane conversations. There is a distinct difference between, "Honey, nothing's working here. I'm walking to Bill's to crash there for the night. Bye" and "Oh, I'm so glad I got through to you. Let me tell you what happened to me today........". If people would just exercise a little self discipline, there would be plenty of capacity for important but non-emergency calls. But Noooooo! They just have to call everyone they know to vent and "process" and "think out loud". We have "the tragedy of the commons" applied to communications. -- Donald Newcomb DRNewcomb (at) attglobal (dot) net Remove 'NOT' from address to reply > And how many zillions of the calls were totally a waist of cell tower time. > At a time like that, everyone should stay off the friggin phone unless it's > a REAL emergency. > But NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, lets tie it all up with inane conversations. Why not let the system do that? Any REAL emergency is 911. Cell towers will drop non-emergency calls, and switches will also drop calls, whenever you dial 911 and the tower is busy, so you're pretty much guaranteed the call. > Why not let the system do that? Any REAL emergency is 911. Cell towers > will drop non-emergency calls, and switches will also drop calls, whenever > you dial 911 and the tower is busy, so you're pretty much guaranteed the > call. Assuming you get to place that call. SignatureFundamentalism is fundamentally wrong. To reply to this message, replace everything to the left of "@" with james.knott. In alt.cellular Paul Kim <worker4youth@hotmail.com> wrote: > Why not let the system do that? Any REAL emergency is 911. Cell towers will > drop non-emergency calls, and switches will also drop calls, whenever you > dial 911 and the tower is busy, so you're pretty much guaranteed the call. There are plenty of important calls (like the aforementioned "No transit, the streets are completely dark, I'm staying at Joe's apartment tonight") that aren't 911 calls. SignatureJustThe.net Internet & Multimedia Services 22674 Motnocab Road * Apple Valley, CA 92307-1950 Steve Sobol, Proprietor 888.480.4NET (4638) * 248.724.4NET * sjsobol@JustThe.net > I'm curious to see what cell companies, (Verizon, Nextel, etc.) continued to > have service in the affected areas during the black out and who did not. > Thanks in advance. I just called a friend in NYC. He's using AT&Ts GSM service. The first try, I got an all circuits are busy message. The call went through the second time with no problem. He said his Blackberry, using Nextel, worked just fine. He said calls were not always completed, but for the most part everything worked. Hopper I'm curious to know if anyone tried SMS? -- Donald Newcomb DRNewcomb (at) attglobal (dot) net > I'm curious to see what cell companies, (Verizon, Nextel, etc.) continued to > have service in the affected areas during the black out and who did not. > Thanks in advance. On my a530 I could get SMS from ATTWS GSM but couldn't send anything. Btw, Blackberry pager on Mobitex was working fine so I could exchange email. "Donald Newcomb" <DRNewcomb@attglobal.NOT.net> wrote in article <3f3c4140_4@news1.prserv.net>: > I'm curious to know if anyone tried SMS? > -- [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > have service in the affected areas during the black out and who did not. > > Thanks in advance. I did and my message was sent. Unfortunately, my son has been unable to charge his phone so, for all intents and purposes, he can't get the SMS message I sent him. SignatureNadyne Nelson nadyne@prospectiveplanning.com > I'm curious to know if anyone tried SMS? > -- [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > have service in the affected areas during the black out and who did not. > > Thanks in advance. > I did and my message was sent. Unfortunately, my son has been unable to > charge his phone so, for all intents and purposes, he can't get the SMS > message I sent him. That's why you need a car charger. :) >I'm curious to know if anyone tried SMS? SMS should have an advantage over voice because of a smaller data packet size and algorithms used to get the message through at random intervals. It keeps trying for a certain time period until it gets through. Much better performance when faced with limited resources. Steve > I'm curious to see what cell companies, (Verizon, Nextel, etc.) continued to > have service in the affected areas during the black out and who did not. > Thanks in advance. yea they did if your landline phone had a backup batery "John Eckart" <JEckart@mail.com> wrote in article <lYW_a.4242$Nf3.2818@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net>: > > I'm curious to see what cell companies, (Verizon, Nextel, etc.) = > continued to > > have service in the affected areas during the black out and who did = > not. > > Thanks in advance. > >=20 In alt.cellular Asher Siboni <shoxe427@yahoo.com> wrote: > yea they did if your landline phone had a backup batery Whether your individual phone has power isn't the point. Unless it's a cordless that requires electricity, your phone runs off power provided by voltage in the phone line (which is why you can use non-cordless phones in a blackout). The issue is if there is power at the switching facilities that carry the traffic (basically, just like on 9/11/01). SignatureJustThe.net Internet & Multimedia Services 22674 Motnocab Road * Apple Valley, CA 92307-1950 Steve Sobol, Proprietor 888.480.4NET (4638) * 248.724.4NET * sjsobol@JustThe.net > In alt.cellular Asher Siboni <shoxe427@yahoo.com> wrote: > > yea they did if your landline phone had a backup batery [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > in a blackout). The issue is if there is power at the switching facilities > that carry the traffic (basically, just like on 9/11/01). And almost all exchanges have backup batteries across the main DC buss that runs the equipment. The batteries are there to smooth out power flow, and to provide power in an outage, until generators can be brought on line, or can be delivered to the site. > Can anyone tell me if the landline phones work during blackouts in NY? That depends on the type of land line you are talking about. Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) that runs on copper twisted pair cable is powered from batteries at the exchange that are continuously charged by converters that are supplied from utility power. The exchanges have emergency generators. So if your telephone is on a copper pair that goes all the way to the exchange your fine. Trouble is that as the demand for service has expanded some of the techniques that have been applied more recently are not as robust. Controlled Environment Vaults or CEVs have batteries but no generator. These mini exchanges can serve thousands of telephones. Some large apartment buildings have multiplexers that combine dozens of calls onto a couple of pairs. When power fails they die in just a couple of hours. Telephone over Coax video cable will die when the line amplifier batteries go dead. There is no longer a simple answer to your question. -- Tom > Can anyone tell me if the landline phones work during blackouts in NY? I can tell you that I could NOT reach my daughter in manhatten on her landline, but she has a CORDLESS phone that requires electricity. I would expect a plain ol' phone would work! The landline systems work on batteries. SignatureRegards, Barrie B > In article <lYW_a.4242$Nf3.2818@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net>, > I can tell you that I could NOT reach my daughter in manhatten on her > landline, but she has a CORDLESS phone that requires electricity. I > would expect a plain ol' phone would work! The landline systems work on > batteries. Right, the landline system is designed to continue to work even when the electric power fails. However, customers can thwart this feature by using fancy phones that rely on electric service. It's good to always have one plain old telephone you can use in a blackout. -- Donald Newcomb DRNewcomb (at) attglobal (dot) net Remove 'NOT' from address to reply > Can anyone tell me if the landline phones work during blackouts in NY? Land line phones are generally not affected by power outages, as the phone system is run on batteries, with several hours capacity and they also have back up generators. SignatureFundamentalism is fundamentally wrong. To reply to this message, replace everything to the left of "@" with james.knott. Verizon landline phones will never be affected by power outages. Unlike wireless companies, landline companies have all their COs and switching centers are run by batteries, which are charged by electricity. If there is a power failture, automatically diesel powered generators start charging the batteries. So Verizon landline phones can work for MONTHS during a power outage. -WK. James Knott <bit_bucket@rogers.com> wrote in article <xk3%a.166733$4UE.21437@news01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com>: > > Can anyone tell me if the landline phones work during blackouts in NY? > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > To reply to this message, replace everything to the left of "@" with > james.knott. AFAIK all VZW cell sites have diesel generators with enough fuel for about 2 days - at least in NJ. One way to tell if a site is VZW is to look at the shed. Verizon typically uses a large shelter about 10x20' and there is an exhaust for the generator engine through the roof. THe exhaust pipe is about 2" in diameter and is a foot or so and extends above the roof a foot or so. >Verizon landline phones will never be affected by power outages. Unlike >wireless companies, landline companies have all their COs and switching [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] > >[posted via phonescoop.com - free web access to the alt.cellular groups] "John Eckart" <JEckart@mail.com> wrote in article <lYW_a.4242$Nf3.2818@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net>: > Can anyone tell me if the landline phones work during blackouts in NY? Our landlines ( all 3 lines) worked fine for the first 18 hours - they all went dead around 10am Friday, along with all of the residential lines of those neighbors that I spoke with in mine and the surrounding buidlings. I'm in Manhattan, on the Lower East Side. I found it interesting - and I'm curious to know why - that the pay phone on the corner was working throughout the blackout, which, for us, did not end until 9pm (we were the last neighborhood to come back online). Wouldn't the pay phone be serviced by the same CO and, if so, why would that line have power when the residential lines did not? FWIW, my VZW mobile service was barely usable by the time the landlines went out. The phone kept going in and out of service in what is normally a very strong signal area. I was successful in getting a call out in about 1 out of 20 attempts. Luckily, the spare battery for my 7135 arrived on Wednesday and I had it charged and ready to go. VZW service was spotty right from the start. In the first 2 hours, I was trying to hook up with my friend who was zig-zagging south and east from W. 40th Street to get to me. We had moderate success on landline to mobile or mobile to landline calls - and almost no success on mobile to mobile calls (only 1 such attempt was successful). Unfortunately, I was on the move for much of the time, helping neighbors get up or downstairs. I remember on one such trip up the stairs, my phone started ringing 3 times along the way.... "you have an incoming" and would abruptly die before the end of the first "ring" each time. These were calls from my friend's VZW phone. On the other hand, a few minutes later, an elderly neighbor who was unable to walk up the stairs to her landline phone, was able to get a call out on my VZW phone to her son in Chicago to let him know she was safe. Signature======== Joel ========= www.jraskin.com ===================== >Our landlines ( all 3 lines) worked fine for the first 18 hours - they >all went dead around 10am Friday, along with all of the residential [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >the pay phone be serviced by the same CO and, if so, why would that line >have power when the residential lines did not? Because pay phones have highest priority - cops and ES workers have to use them when the radio goes *boink* in a large scale crisis, and also have to use them for landline calls when somethings too sensitive to discuss oer the air in normal times. <snip> -- Nobody but a fool goes into a federal counterrorism operation without duct tape - Richard Preston, THE COBRA EVENT. >Can anyone tell me if the landline phones work during blackouts in NY? Yes they did. I was blacked out till 5am friday. I was able to make and receive calls on my phone. Then the service died at around 10am friday. The phone then died till around 10pm. ----------------- Alex __O _-\<,_ (_)/ (_) > I'm curious to see what cell companies, (Verizon, Nextel, etc.) continued > to have service in the affected areas during the black out and who did > not. Thanks in advance. Rogers in the Toronto area maintained service until powered was restored at 11 PM in my area. SignatureFundamentalism is fundamentally wrong. To reply to this message, replace everything to the left of "@" with james.knott. My Nextel worked in cellular mode,direct connect and group connect modes fine.A few cell calls got "system busy" message. Verizon calls got busy signals. Upstate NY > I'm curious to see what cell companies, (Verizon, Nextel, etc.) continued to > have service in the affected areas during the black out and who did not. > Thanks in advance. >I'm curious to see what cell companies, (Verizon, Nextel, etc.) continued to >have service in the affected areas during the black out and who did not. >Thanks in advance. Around 4:30-ish, my Sprint phone worked, but the call dropped, & for the next few hours I kept getting a "fast busy". Rob ---------- To email me, throw in an extra "x", and spell the domain correctly. In the thick of it in Hudson Valley, calls did not always go through the first time, but they did go through, as long as they were to the Northeast, essentially. My daughter's cell is a Hudson Valley number, but she's stationed in Georgia. Could not get a call through to that phone. But we were able to call her landline in Georgia. Also Verizon vm did not pick up, although people who left me vm's were able to. Signal levels displayed strong. <David> wrote in article <vjo6is39cj852e@corp.supernews.com>: > I'm curious to see what cell companies, (Verizon, Nextel, etc.) continued to > have service in the affected areas during the black out and who did not. > Thanks in advance. This is a repeat of my post from last week, but it seems that half of us want reasonable rates for service( ie "free" or less)and complain when we have occasional outages, and the other half of us want service which never fails, and complain when the providers charge enough to stay in business, or heave forbid, make a profit. If we are willing to accept service rates which have no $limit, (to infinity) then we can have cell service which "almost" never fails--this is the old math thing of division by zero. To reduce the outage probability, the carriers would have to have several times normal usage capacity sitting around, waiting for the "odd situation" to occur (the 100 year flood thing), would require back up power sources, and then back up's for the back ups, etc--of course all this extra stuff doesn't cost the providers anything to put in place and maintain, etc. Whether true or not, a talking head commented that the various occurrences which came together just at the right time last Thursday, couldn't be put together again if everyone involved tried to do it again. Not to say, that another unusual set might not occur, I guess. Sorry for long post, summary is that "SH-T Happens" <David> wrote in article <vjo6is39cj852e@corp.supernews.com>: > I'm curious to see what cell companies, (Verizon, Nextel, etc.) continued to > have service in the affected areas during the black out and who did not. > Thanks in advance. |
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