Lesson Learned: Cell Phone Service Shut Down

[Ken]

Here's a lesson to be learned. Cell phone service in Boston has been shut down to prevent remote detonations.

[rebel]

They shut down the cell service when the prez is in town. .....and forget to turn it back on.

[Ken]

Most of the Boston Newspaper and Television websites were overloaded.

[hunter63]

Good indication of how fragile the cell phone system is......BIG lesson.

Good old CB anyone?

[Ken]

Good indication of how fragile the cell phone system is......BIG lesson.

Good old CB anyone?

My 2-way system covers most of eastern Mass. I guess it's time to set each of my kids up with a base and a portable..

[Rick]

Phone service is engineered at 80% maximum capacity. It's actually a balance between cost for the phone company and how many calls can be handled under normal situations. Given the extreme nature of the situation in Boston I'm sure cell service was overloaded. I doubt it was shut down. Even if you don't have service your cell phone is still trying to ping the tower so if you were in the vicinity of a real bomb and it was triggered by remote control and your cell phone were on the same frequency and you were close enough you might trigger the device.

[crashdive123]

Phone service is engineered at 80% maximum capacity. It's actually a balance between cost for the phone company and how many calls can be handled under normal situations. Given the extreme nature of the situation in Boston I'm sure cell service was overloaded. I doubt it was shut down. Even if you don't have service your cell phone is still trying to ping the tower so if you were in the vicinity of a real bomb and it was triggered by remote control and your cell phone were on the same frequency and you were close enough you might trigger the device.

There are conflicting news reports regarding cell service being shut down. Not really all that unusual in a "live event".

As to the trigger being on the same frequency - I know that you know about phones - this is just a question - if the ied is uses a cell phone for its detonator, would it have to receive a signal from a tower to "ring", or would dialing the number of that phone and being close enough work?

[kyratshooter]

last year when we had a tornado cell service was diverted to first responder use. They can do it selectively.

[cowgirlup]

In addition to being shut down the towers were overloaded. Even in NH we could not make cell calls. We are at least an hour and a half west of Boston.

[BENESSE]

I distinctly remember not being able to get through on my cell on 9/11. And the land lines were busy as well.

[Ken]

last year when we had a tornado cell service was diverted to first responder use. They can do it selectively.

I don't remember the precise name of the service, but I recall a name like "red network." When I was an EMA director, our critical lines, including my personal phone at home, were designated for this service. We were that last to lose service if we lost it at all.

[Rick]

As to the trigger being on the same frequency - I know that you know about phones - this is just a question - if the ied is uses a cell phone for its detonator, would it have to receive a signal from a tower to "ring", or would dialing the number of that phone and being close enough work?

I'm no EOD guy but my understanding is they tie into the speaker leads. When the phone rings a thyristor allows a battery pack to discharge into the primary charge. You can not do this phone to phone. It has to go through the tower. The sim card in your cell phone or the cell phone itself (if its CDMA) communicates with the tower only. You might be able to do that using a walkie talkie type service like Direct Talk from Sprint. But it could just as easily be a trigger from a remote control kids car or airplane or a GRMS radio. Not knowing what the trigger is precludes the EOD guys from using radios on the off chance they may set off the bomb they are trying to defuse.

[Geek]

I distinctly remember not being able to get through on my cell on 9/11. And the land lines were busy as well.

9/11 took out a Verizon building with 400,000 phone lines next door to WTC as well as 10 cell towers on top of the WTC buildings. Cell service was spotty after each of the hurricanes in the past few years and it disappeared entirely during the 2003 blackout.

[Old GI]

I don't remember the precise name of the service, but I recall a name like "red network." When I was an EMA director, our critical lines, including my personal phone at home, were designated for this service. We were that last to lose service if we lost it at all.

In my EMA days we had that but, as usual, memory fails as to the name but as i recall it didn't work that well in 2004. Also, in the case of most disasters, volume dramatically increases to the point of overload as well. In the case of hurricanes, many cell towers went down, compounding the problem.

[Rick]

9/11 took out a Verizon building with 400,000 phone lines next door to WTC

You might also be interested to know that building housed the servers for the stock market. That's the reason the stock market closed. We did not have enough spare servers on hand to replace them so each one was recovered, thoroughly cleaned and reinstalled. They were turned up less than 2 hours before the stock market went back on line. It was that close.