At what point will cell phones start to be effected by wide spread power outages? I am guessing that at some point when enough areas loose power so will cell towers and other "points of transfer". Anyone ideas?
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Cell phones and the power grid
- Thread starter Mikey
- Start date
Most towers / repeaters are on generator or redundant type power feed systems. If they go down it will because of over usage (because so many land lines are down). That being said. Ice and storm conditions will effect the towers more than the power loss will.
In an extended power outage, wouldn't the question be how many days of fuel those generators have? I have noticed a significant decrease in reception in my area. I'm sure it's partially due to ice coverage, but I also wonder how much of that is due to the loss of power and how many towers around me actually are running on backup power..
I now know that the tower that services my house will last ~24 hours...
strangenh
NES Member
In S. Central NH, the landline phones went down 12 hours after the area power went out. Guess FairPoint either didn't bother to test or fuel the generators at some of their COs. Power was out here for 60 hours or so; some areas still out of course.
We had good cell service the entire time.
Kinda sad when the old bomb-proof Bell facilities are less reliable in today's companies' hands than are cell towers.
We had good cell service the entire time.
Kinda sad when the old bomb-proof Bell facilities are less reliable in today's companies' hands than are cell towers.
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