Do Cell Phones Work in Power Outages?
posted October 13, 2009 - 3:58pmAlthough in this day and age of more effective power distribution we are still occasionally subjected to power outages in the United States. This being said we all have to make sure we know the facts when it comes to our cell phones and power outages.
Towers
Cell phone towers cover more than 95% of the United States with their signal. Granted, not all companies cover all areas, but it is a good chance that your cell phone could be covered by two or more towers. So providing all of these towers are not on the same power grid, you should still be able to have marginal service.
Batteries
We all know it takes batteries to run our cell phones, but there are also batteries in the towers that serve us. These batteries are there in case the power does indeed go out. So again, you will most likely have service.
Legalities
Cell phone providers are not legally bound to provide you with power back up in case of an outage. Most of your contracts will explicitly state that. However, out of courtesy to their customers many providers will offer these back ups for your towers.
Government Involvement
In some cases you may still have power, but be unable to use your cell phone. This is because emergency units are currently holding the cell phone signals for only essential government services.
Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP)
A craze over cell phone providers is to offer VOIP service for your land line phone. However, if you are not receiving power to your house, it is likely that the cable or satellite that is connecting your VOIP modem to your phone is not running either.
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