Florida Report on Verizon and Cingular

John Navas wrote:
> my basic points have long since been made
>
> -John

Tin foil hats hide a pointed head very nicely, according to Googled
research.

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› See More: Florida Report on Verizon and Cingular

We were in Port Charlotte on Friday, the 13th of August 2004 when Hurricane Charley hit. Spent quite awhile in the walk-in closet in mortal fear. Later news reports stated the wind speed indicator 1/4 mile away on the Key Bank building on Rt 41 hit 140mph before being torn off the building.

We spent days without power or phone service (strange, the landline worked for a couple of hours after the storm, then quit), but our Verizon cellphones never failed. Lots of system busy, but we could eventually get a call through.

Our downstairs neighbor ran a small generator for days afterwards, and tossed me an extension cord so we could have a light in the apartment and charge up our phones---blessed man.

I kind of laughed at myself at the time for cleaning the bathtub and filling it with water before the storm. Three days later, when the generator-powered light, the cellphone and the toilet (using bathtub water) were the only things that worked anymore, I wasn't laughing.

Remember the Twilight Zone episode where some people thought they had crashlanded on a desert planet, only to wander for days, then climb a hill and look down to see Las Vegas (the craft had crashed in the desert just outside the city)??

After two days of assuming power was out everywhere, we got up the nerve to take a short ride in the car. A few miles up the road in North Port, the lights were on and Outback was open. Best steak I ever ate.



"George" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
> John Navas wrote:
>> On Thu, 24 Aug 2006 17:54:46 -0400, George <[email protected]> wrote
>> in <[email protected]>:
>>
>>
>>>And another feature is that Verizon doesn't omit things like batteries,
>>>generators and redundant data paths. ...
>>
>>
>> Likewise other carriers, including Cingular.
>>
>
> Actually no, the GSM carriers only install barebones systems. tmobile
> only has a simple cabinet at each site without battery and a connector
> for a generator to be plugged in. The Cingular GSM sites are constructed
> in the same fashion. When I asked someone they said they had two
> generators for an almost two state area.
>
> VZW has battery and generators on each site. Ask anyone who went thru
> the Florida hurricanes and had VZW why they were the most popular person
> on their block for weeks after the storms.

Dean wrote:
> Remember the Twilight Zone episode where some people thought they had
> crashlanded on a desert planet, only to wander for days, then climb a
> hill and look down to see Las Vegas (the craft had crashed in the desert
> just outside the city)??

Obviously they purchased GSM only phones before their vacation and
didn't realize most of Nevada was still on a TDMA footprint. Either that
or Las Vegas didn't employ extended GSM.