Natural and manmade disasters are always going to overload wireless networks as frantic people try to contact loved ones, find out what the hell is happening and in today’s society, update their status, comment and upload video to social-media networks.
Yesterday’s earthquake along the East Coast once again showed that even if the network can withstand the assault relatively unscathed, voice calls can overwhelm the networks when everyone who is impacted is trying to connect. SMS volumes increased as well, but the network could handle those messages. Syniverse processed more than 220 million SMS messages in the two hours following the earthquake, a 15% increase. During peak texting times, traffic increased 21% from the previous day. The texts went through. Cellular networks also got bogged down earlier this month when a violent storm burst through the Indiana State Fair, killing seven people and injuring many more.
