With the recent storms and power outages that followed, many turned to their cellular devices to reach the outside world and connect their portable devices to the internet.
Yet mobile data traffic and voice calls were slow, unreliable, or simply nonexistent.
David Witkowski, founder of O.K.U. Solutions, shares why that is the case…
“Some [cellular] towers have generator backup, others don’t. The bigger ones do, like the one above Cabrillo College, and those that cover miles and miles. But the fill-in sites that provide you with a lot of your data, they don’t have backup power”, David said.
“When power goes off, you probably still have have the ability to make a phone call or texting, which is low-impact on the network”.
Witkowski went on to recommend planning for these outages by determining backup power sources for your mobile devices or internet equipment.
He also stated that a traditional landline-based service is the most reliable way to reach the outside world in natural disaster events.
Witkowski also mentioned that unlike traditional phone systems that were powered from the central office directly to a building, cable internet relies on hopping between neighborhoods, as well as their power sources, hence the internet outages that linger for some customers.
