About 25 percent of all cell towers are down in the 10 states hit by Hurricane Sandy, according to the FCC. However, AT&T and T-Mobile are joining forces -- for a time -- to help handle the talk and data traffic in New York City and New Jersey, They are two areas specifically impacted by the storm.
<strong>AT&T and T-Mobile join forces</strong>
A number of people are calling Sandy a "super storm." It has caused land lines to go down entirely and has made it really hard to get calls through on the networks. The cell connection has been pretty bad.
T-Mobile pointed out that in New York City, 20 percent of the network was down, which is not so good news in a city that big.
But AT&T and T-Mobile are doing something to help. They have made a temporary deal to share GSM and 3G networks with no roaming fees and no service agreement changes or rate plan changes.
Both communications giants use network technology based on GSM and UMTS standards, which makes them compatible for sharing the traffic load.
<strong>Calling all that matters</strong>
No matter which carrier you are using, the network that is the least congested will take the call at that time. AT&T and T-Mobile suggest that consumers do nothing out of the ordinary and make calls like normal.
<strong>Odds are it will get worse</strong>
It is slow and hard to get the towers and communications back up, meaning the deal may last much longer than everyone expects even though it is temporary.
Julius Genachowski is the FCC chairman who said:
"Our assumption is that communications outages could get worse before they get better, particularly for mobile."
Nobody knows how long it will be before the power is back up, and current cell towers that are working are using backup generators. The generators may not last long enough.
<strong>Chance of advertisement</strong>
But of course no marketing opportunity is left untried, even in times of disaster, as the press release that inspired this post indicates. AT&T and T-Mobile are both doing a good thing for the troubled areas, but neither overlooks an opportunity for brand recognition.
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