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Wireless Carriers Step It Up In Response To Fires
Offer free calling and Internet services to locals....

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T-Mobile has lost thirty towers due to the Southern California wildfires; Verizon Wireless says they've lost eleven. The loss of infrastructure mixed with the surge in disaster-related traffic has obviously strained local networks.

AT&T is offering free calls and web access at a number of locations, as is Verizon Wireless. T-Mobile has made Wi-Fi access free across all of its hotspots in Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange, San Bernardino, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

Locals are finding services like Google Maps and Twitter incredibly useful, as they spit out the necessary information much more quickly than cable news networks can. Maps like this one are allowing people to track the fires in real time. Meanwhile, NASA has posted the latest satellite image of the fires here.

Most recommended from 15 comments


BPLSUCKS9
join:2006-04-26
Grand Ledge, MI

2 recommendations

BPLSUCKS9

Member

This is why....

This is why we have HAM radio and field radio operators. For exactly these cases when the towers are knocked out. The good news is that insurence will cover new towers and better tech to be put up. I'm glad to see that wireless carriers are responding like this. Hopefully they can get portable towers up and in place soon to help augment the call volume.