Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma wreaked havoc along the Gulf Coast and in Florida last year, and the U.S. is facing another above-average hurricane season. Cellular carriers claim that they are ready for the storm season, which starts June 1 and is expected to bring as many as six major hurricanes and a high potential of a hurricane making landfall on U.S. shores at some point during the season, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Operators scrambled to restore service after each of the storms last year, and ran into particular problems after Katrina due to the persistent flooding that took out fiber-optic lines used for wireless backhaul, as well as tightly controlled access to New Orleans, which delayed technicians’ ability to get to the towers themselves to make repairs.
This year, carriers say, they have invested in additional back-up generators to keep towers working in the event of a power outage, beefed up their fleets of cells on wheels (COWs) and cells on light trucks (COLTs) that can move in to provide wireless coverage until towers can be repaired, and are trying to take a more strategic view of hurricane response.
Verizon Wireless spokesman Tom Pica said that the carrier has put back-up generators at more than 90 percent of its cell sites in hurricane-prone areas and that the carrier’s “battle-tested” network is prepared for the season. As in last year’s storms, Verizon Wireless will rely on its ability to draw resources from its operations in other parts of the country, stage them prior to a storm in areas that are nearby but safe, and then “move in as fast as humanly possible,” Pica said.
Such steps will be crucial to a quicker service restoration after a storm, according to Iain Gillott of iGillott Research.
“You can expect problems,” Gillott said. What will make the difference in solving hurricane-related problems, he said, is having generators to power significant parts of the network, having network backhaul redundancies and how quickly operators will be able to move in COWs and COLTs to provide a Band-Aid until they can get the regular network up and running again.
Still, Gillott noted, “What happened last year was pretty extreme.”
Consumers also have a few new options to help gear themselves up for the season. In Florida, where hurricanes are a fact of life, the state is including cellular phone batteries and car chargers on a list of items which residents can purchase state sales-tax-free until June 1 as part of an effort to encourage citizens to stockpile supplies that will be useful in the event of a hurricane. The Weather Channel also is rolling out a hurricane tracker for mobile phones, available either through the mobile Web or as a downloadable application that tailors severe weather alerts to a customer’s ZIP code.
But simply being ready to repair the network in the event of a hurricane isn’t the only problem to prepare for, as Gillott pointed out. When people are told to evacuate, it can lead to “tens of thousands of people stuck in traffic, and they’re all pulling out their cell phones to call grandma,” he said. “The network demands change considerably.”
Jill Riley, sales director for Unicel in its southern territory, said that the small operator has boosted its network capacity by adding cell sites along hurricane evacuation routes, which fall into its territory in Mississippi and Alabama, and by putting generators at all of its critical cell sites along those routes.
“I think we’re as prepared as we can be,” Riley said.
Sprint Nextel Corp. spokesman John Taylor said that among other preparations, the nation’s third-largest carrier already has negotiated contracts for the lease of spaces such as fairgrounds and parking lots which the company can essentially use as command posts from which to operate. Sprint Nextel had success with this strategy last year in setting up its “Sprint City.” Also, Taylor noted, Sprint Nextel won’t be dealing with the challenges related to a fresh merger of two large companies during this hurricane season; Sprint Corp.’s acquisition of Nextel Communications Corp. was completed Aug. 12, and Katrina struck on Aug. 29.
“Each storm is different,” said Cingular Wireless L.L.C. spokesman Clay Owen. During Hurricane Wilma, he said, there was more wind damage to towers, whereas with Katrina the flooding was the primary problem. Along with its network investments, Cingular has purchased a pair of mobile command centers: 53-foot vehicles equipped with satellite communications capabilities that can serve as a self-sustaining work environment for employees who can’t get to an office, and can offer a space for getting food and water. Cingular is based in Atlanta, where both the Gulf Coast and the Eastern seaboard can be accessed fairly easily, and Owen said that Cingular is exploring the idea of getting additional vehicles for use in other parts of the country-during a Western wildfire, for example, or a blizzard.
Still, Owen and other company officials noted, it would be foolish to expect a wireless network to operate perfectly under such dire circumstances as a hurricane.
“We never try to give the impression that service won’t be impaired,” Owen said. Wireless networks were just one of the many types of businesses which had their operations impacted by the hurricanes, he pointed out. However, he said, “I think we can learn lessons and become better prepared, restore service quicker and at the same time try to make the experience better for our employees.”
