Public services were disrupted, some of them severely, particularly in Washington and New York. According to Reuters, landline and cellular telephony service was disrupted in the affected regions, either due to damage or to congestion by the ensuing flood of calls. First responders who rely on cellular networks for alerting were also affected by the service breakdown.
Vincent D. Kelly, president and CEO of USA Mobility, emphasized that the earthquake aftermath had shown once again that cellular networks are not suitable for early warning and alerting in case of disasters. In order to warn as many people as possible of an impending disaster, “one-to-many” technologies are necessary, such as radio, TV and other broadcast services, including paging systems with dense coverage. Authoritative, widely distributed information is indispensable to launch and coordinate preventive and rescue operations quickly.
“Paging has proven itself as an integral part of hospital and first-responder workflows and critical response processes for many years,” Kelly added. “There is a long list of national emergencies in which paging networks remained 100% operational while cellular phone networks suffered. Recent examples include the 9/11 attacks of 2001, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the Minnesota bridge collapse in 2007, and the Southern California earthquake of 2008.” A paging-based emergency network would have allowed fire, police, and medical personnel to communicate fast and reliably. For that reason, a key recommendation of the 9/11 Commission was to integrate paging in the national emergency response system.
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