I'm even more sorry because it is not silly. Financial District in Lower Manhattan was an extreme case and a once in 100 year event. Phone companies are likely to man their Central Offices before during and after a storm and there is a lot of backup power. Cell sites which are scattered all over in most cases can't have the backup power due to space, cost, and other factors and are not manned. Sandy wiped out 1 in 4 cell sites. Simply moving from one area to a "working" area may not always be possible and batteries drain quickly as the handset searches for a working signal. If you're in NYC as your profile says, then you would understand most people here dont have cars to charge their phone. E911 doesn't work great on cell phones but if u dial 911 from a landline, they know exactly where you are.
Edited by nyctveng - 2/21/13 at 6:25am
Quote:
Originally Posted by UnnDunn 
I'm sorry, but this is silly. All of these technologies have vulnerabilities that could result in a loss of service, especially during extreme weather events. For example, if you live or work in the Financial District of NYC and you were on copper, you may have lost service for WEEKS after Hurricane Sandy because all the underground copper corroded while submerged in storm-surge flooding. Fiber customers got service back in a few days since all they had to do was replace the distributors. Staying on copper is no panacea against future service loss.
If you're making decisions based on reliability during extreme situations, you're probably best served buying a cheap prepaid cellphone, since cellphones by their very nature have redundancies to help mitigate interference and service loss (in other words, you are served by multiple towers; if one goes down you still have others to provide service. And if you lose service entirely, you can move to a location where you can get service.) Buy a cellphone and use your car to charge it if you lose power for an extended period.
But clinging doggedly to your POTS line and raging on the Internets because of this is just dumb.
I'm sorry, but this is silly. All of these technologies have vulnerabilities that could result in a loss of service, especially during extreme weather events. For example, if you live or work in the Financial District of NYC and you were on copper, you may have lost service for WEEKS after Hurricane Sandy because all the underground copper corroded while submerged in storm-surge flooding. Fiber customers got service back in a few days since all they had to do was replace the distributors. Staying on copper is no panacea against future service loss.
If you're making decisions based on reliability during extreme situations, you're probably best served buying a cheap prepaid cellphone, since cellphones by their very nature have redundancies to help mitigate interference and service loss (in other words, you are served by multiple towers; if one goes down you still have others to provide service. And if you lose service entirely, you can move to a location where you can get service.) Buy a cellphone and use your car to charge it if you lose power for an extended period.
But clinging doggedly to your POTS line and raging on the Internets because of this is just dumb.
Edited by nyctveng - 2/21/13 at 6:25am
