Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Black Out- Nextel's Chris Grandis Said:"We need electricity to power our cell sites, but when you don't have that, it's out of our control"

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 17 Aug 2003 02:42:18 -0400

Black Out- Nextel's Chris Grandis Said:"We need electricity to power our cell
sites, but when you don't have that, it's out of our control"

You gota love that "Homeland Security" can do attitude! (NOT)
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Blackout gives cell phones a black eye
August 16, 2003 4:45pm
ZDWire Plus

Cell phone service once again failed to step up in the face of calamity.During
Thursday's blackout that darkened parts of the Northeast, most cell phone
subscribers were unable to make calls when they reached for their handsets. Only
the truly persistent were able to get through after the lights went out, the
largest U.S. carrier, Verizon Wireless, acknowledged in a statement Friday.In
addition, the top six cell phone carriers in the United States said they were
still battling outages on Friday morning. The carriers blamed the ongoing outages
on their cellular transmitter stations, which handle cell phone call traffic. "We
need electricity to power our cell sites, but when you don't have that, it's out
of our control," Nextel Communications spokesman Chris Grandis said.The
transmitter stations are powered by electricity, and most have battery backups
that provide three to six hours of additional operation. But when the blackout
stretched beyond six hours, the stations that were still working went dead.

This is the second time a significant number of American cell phone subscribers
had difficulty making calls during a time of crisis. The first was after the Sept.
11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when damage to the cell phone antennas on the World
Trade Center towers and heavy traffic brought wireless dialing to a standstill.
Thursday's blackout caused a similar surge in cell phone calls, creating about
four times the usual traffic in the area, according to Verizon Wireless.IDC
analyst Keith Waryas believes America's 146 million wireless subscribers will
continue to have problems getting calls through during emergency times, although
he believes the 2003 blackout will force carriers to better arm their networks
against electricity failures."These kinds of lessons are pointing to one thing:

We expect our cell phones to always be on," he said. "This is a learning
curve."Since Thursday, many wireless subscribers in the Northeast have returned to
the landline telephones they've increasingly given up in favor of cell phones.
Verizon Communications, a part-owner of Verizon Wireless, said Friday that use of
landlines was 300 percent above normal levels following the blackout. Traditional
lines continued working, because phone companies have added back-up power
throughout their systems, which also send electrical current to phones.The six
leading U.S. cellular companies were still working to return to full capacity on
Friday, in the face of ongoing problems."We're seeing strong improvements as power
is coming back up," AT&T Wireless spokesman Ritch Blasi said. "But even with that,
some calls aren't going through."He added: "Our back-up systems worked as
designed, but the extent and duration of this massive outage, which has been
called the biggest ever, affected our network."Among the worst-affected places
Friday were Detroit and Bloomfield, Mich. Some 75 percent of the Cingular Wireless
network in those cities wasn't working Friday morning, the carrier said
Friday.Nextel's Grandis said the company was sending generators to power cell
sites in the Detroit area.Sprint PCS spokesman Dan Wilinsky said all of Sprint's
18.8 million customers should have service returned by Friday. But "multiple sites
in the Northeast corridor continue to be impacted," he added.Verizon Wireless
reported a healthier outlook. "Throughout the country, service this morning is
normal, except for a few isolated areas in the five boroughs of New York City,
Detroit and Cleveland," the carrier said in a statement Friday.

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