WASHINGTON, November 1 (RIA Novosti) - Millions of Americans along the northeastern coast of the United States are still without cell phone service, as government agencies assess damage to more than 100 cell phone towers across ten states that were knocked out due to Hurricane Sandy.
“Our assumption is that communications outages could get worse before they get better, particularly for mobile,” said Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
According to US media reports, numerous cell phone towers, many inaccessible due to flooding, are still running using backup generators. Once those generators run out of power, officials say, more towers are expected to go dark and more mobile phone customers will temporarily lose service.
“Overall, the condition of our communications networks is improving, but serious outages remain, particularly in New York, New Jersey, and other hard-hit areas,” Genachowski said.
Meanwhile, US wireless phone companies AT&T and T-Mobile announced they will temporarily share networks, rerouting calls from customers in areas affected by the storm, to whichever network has the strongest signal at that time.
Due to the high volume of calls, customers in the northeast that use the Verizon network could experience “all circuits are busy” messages when attempting to place calls.
