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Wireless Industry Resisted Calls To Backup Cell Towers Before Sandy
Wireless Industry Resisted Calls To Backup Cell Towers Before Sandy
One key factor helps explain why communities ravaged by Hurricane Sandy could not use cell phones to call for help and communicate with the outside world: mobile telephone companies have for years lobbied to kill rules that would have forced them to maintain backup power at their cell phone towers.
After Hurricane Katrina knocked out communications along the Gulf Coast, federal regulators proposed that wireless companies have backup power at all cell towers.
But the wireless industry sued to block the requirement, saying it would be a financial burden and regulators didn't have authority to impose it. An appeals court later sided with the industry.
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Full article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/04/wireless-cell-service-sandy_n_2072287.html
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Wireless Industry Resisted Calls To Backup Cell Towers Before Sandy (Original Post)
Tx4obama
Nov 2012
OP
jsr
(7,712 posts)1. Everything for short-term profits
and the cellphone bills are not getting smaller either.
aquart
(69,014 posts)2. So once again, privatization serves the corporation and fails the nation.
drm604
(16,230 posts)3. This shows the necessity of regulations in some circumstances.
The free market would never solve this on it's own. It costs less to occasionally drop service than to maintain backup systems, and public safety be damned.
If the public sues over this, they'll lobby for protection from lawsuits.