Communichaos - Is Los Angeles Ready For The Big One?
July 30, 2008
(5 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading ...We often hear about how important cell phones are in a disaster. When you are forced out of your home or office, or when the power fails, you can always turn to your trusty cell phone for help.
Yesterday’s 5.4 magnitude earthquake in the LA Metro area was only a moderate trembler which did very little damage. But the temporary impact on the cellular networks was profound. For hours after the quake, users trying to make mobile calls or send text messages were met with network busy signals, as millions of people attempted to contact loved ones.
Which begs the question, if Mobile networks were overwhelmed by a modest earthquake, how would they fare in a major catastrophe?
Officials are urging Californians to take yesterday’s earthquake as a warning that it is time to reevaluate their disaster preparedness. It may not be wise to assume that our cell phones will be available when the big one hits, if yesterdays wild ride was any indication about network capacity in a crisis - they won’t be.
photo by the USGS
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Just wanted to say HI. I found your blog a few days ago on Technorati and have been reading it over the past few days.
After the LA earthquake yesterday, I tried to call my relatives who live or work around Chino Hills and Diamond Bar area. Both of my cell-phones (626 area code, a T-mobile and the other is an AT&T) did not work for about two hours. Text messages did not work either.
I had the same problem. I couldn’t make an outbound call from my cell phone for hours. I tried using SMS as well, but I would need to hit “Send” over and over again - up to 20 times - before it would go through. It was very frustrating. I received a text from home saying that we had some things fall and break but I couldn’t call anyone at home to find out what broke or how bad things were. Turns out that we just had a couple of precariously placed things fall off a bookshelf. But not knowing made if feel much worse - until the lines cleared up and I was able to text and call again.
Same thing up in Ventura County, about 70 miles from the epicenter. The home phone (FIOS) stopped working for awhile and the cell phone for about 30 minutes. If this had been “The Big One” I can’t imagine how much more difficult it would have been to contact loved ones.
The advice to have a “Back-Up” plan is truly a good one.
Yeah, I was told that’s actually the wrong thing to do, calling home. The reason behind that is that lines should be left open for emergency use. But really how many people pay attention to that bit of advice and furthermore why should they? We should have an infrastructure that can handle an emergency situation.
I couldn’t get a cell call through for hours (Verizon), but the land-lines were up fine for the 15-second “You OK? - We’re Ok - Bye!” calls.
The problem you have with Cellular is the same one with the Public Switched Telephone Network, but magnified by lack of regulatory oversight: The PSTN doesn’t have enough physical capacity to handle more than around 5% of customers making calls at once.. Since there are no minimum customer loading ratio regulations (that I know of) cell providers can and do shave it even thinner. Add in an unusual event, and the system fails.
And unlike the PSTN, emergency power is not required at all cell sites - and you just saw how bad it was with the power still on. If we lose the power grid the micro-cell sites (on the canyon roads) trhat have no batteries go down immediately. The larger cell sites would run on batteries for an hour or two, and then the system would lose power and start to fall apart - precisely when it is needed the most.
Unless they sent hundreds of trucks with generators out to every site, and the cell companies don’t have the bodies (or trucks or portable generators) to do it. And there are too many weak links - miss one fiber repeater power feed, and that whole branch of the network goes down.
And the really scary part: Many public safety agencies consider cellular as the backup system to their normal radio comms, even though cellular is likely to break first.
(Ex-COE Installer, Ex-Construction Splicer.)