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NE US Earthquake--cell phones stop, landlines ok [telecom]

After the 8/22 earthquake felt all over the northeast US, cell phones were not working in our area, apparently due to the flood of calls of people checking with their friends. However, landlines worked fine.

While an earthquake is very surprising in the east, this was very minor in the grand scheme of things. What would happen to the telecom network (all modes--landline voice, internet/email, cell phone) if there was a serious event?

I believe on 9/11/2001 telecomm service in the NYC area was disrupted due to the flood of calls.

Reply to
Hancock4
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Whenever there is a tornado warning in Oklahoma City, and I assume in other tornado prone areas, the cellular network immediately becomes overloaded and maybe no practical access for an hour or two.

If a tornado strikes, the landline network will be overloaded, too.

Wes Leatherock snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com snipped-for-privacy@aol.com

Reply to
Wes Leatherock

I was able to make a cell phone call to a cell phone and a landline soon after the earthquake [2:12 PM] Later the cell would not reach the tower. My girlfriend was able to call from cell to my work landline at 3:00 PM. We have had must worse outages with hurricanes. The ironic one was when the telephone pole was down accross from my house and electricity was off. The landline still worked with the cable pinned to the ground. Noisy but it worked!

Mark Mark L. Smith  snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com

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Reply to
Mark Smith

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