Phone Home During Emergency? Don't Count on It

Aug. 4, 2007 — -- It happened on 9/11, during Katrina and other hurricanes, after the bridge collapse in Minneapolis, and likely will happen again the next time disaster strikes: Shaken survivors reach for their cell phones and can't get through.

"The networks aren't designed to handle everyone in Minnesota being on the cell phone at the same time," said Julie Ask, a wireless analyst for Jupiter Research.

During emergencies, "You always see people lined up at pay phones because their cell phones are out," said Nick Sbordone of New York City's Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications.

It might seem that nearly six years after 9/11 -- when making cell phone calls was notoriously difficult -- the wireless companies might have the situation in hand. But building an infrastructure certain to handle the blitz of calls home to reassure mom from a disaster zone would cost too much and jack up rates beyond what customers would be willing to pay, analysts said.

"You would be overspending," said Dave Kaut, a telecom regulatory analyst with the financial services company Stifel Nicholas. "You would go out of business."

Even spending to add towers and other equipment might not be enough to ensure service in some disaster situations. For instance, Hurricane Katrina knocked out land lines and cell phones because of flooded cell towers and lost power.

Minneapolis Calling

Officials said it was difficult to make a cell phone voice call immediately following the collapse of the I-35 bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. That often forced emergency responders to use radios and other communications devices.

"We were inconvenienced, but it did not affect our response," said Kristie Rollwagen, deputy director of emergency preparedness for the city of Minneapolis. "We have redundant systems built in."

Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile officials said their cell networks near the bridge initially were overloaded with people trying to make calls, but the companies rushed in extra equipment to correct the problem.

"We were able to mobilize quickly in order to truck in additional radios; they were installed in the critical zone," T-Mobile spokesman Peter Dobrow said.

He said the company learned from past disasters to be ready to send in such reinforcements.

"The fact is you never know when and where disaster will strike," he said. "Basically, the best you can do … is prepare properly so you're in a best position to react quickly."

Verizon Wireless spokeswoman Karen Smith said the timing of the collapse during the evening rush hour -- already typically the busiest time for cell phone calls -- compounded the problem.

Getting Through

"There were so many people calling, not just around the site … that our network process doubled the number of calls in that hour on a normal day," Smith said. "During that first hour, people might have had to made an attempt a second time to get their call to go through. ... We were back to normal later that evening."

According to published reports, AT&T also had some cell phone service problems. An ABCNews.com e-mail to an AT&T spokeswoman was not answered.

John Taylor, public affairs manager for Sprint Nextel Corp. said that despite a brief spike in call volume, the company's cell phone service did not get overloaded during the bridge collapse. However, the company's wire lines did.

"Our long distance customers who were trying to make calls into the Minneapolis-St. Paul area … some of those customers may have received a fast busy [signal] or a recorded voice announcement," Taylor said.

So how can someone raise their chances of getting through when lines are jammed? Try to send a text message, which requires less bandwidth and might squeak through overloaded networks, experts said.

"Teach your mom and dad how to text message, because you never know when they'll be in a situation," T-Mobile's Dobrow said. "If you are able to access the voice network, keep your calls prudently short in order to give others access."

But text messaging may not be a complete substitute for the reassurance of a voice over the phone.

"You don't get confirmation of the receipt of a [text] message," Ask said. "That's not bad, but it's not what I call peace of mind."