Data from the Federal Communications Commission shows 874 cellphone towers were offline during an Oct. 27 power shutoff that affected millions of people. That included more than half of the cell towers in Marin County alone.
The outages mean people who depend solely on cellphones couldn’t call 911 or receive emergency notifications, compounding the dangers associated with an unprecedented power outage in an era dominated by wireless communication.
On Wednesday, representatives from AT&T and Verizon are scheduled to testify before state lawmakers about the outages and ways to prevent them. It’s the second time state lawmakers will have hauled in private companies to account for the effects surrounding the widespread blackouts in the fall, the largest planned power outages in state history.
This story is from the January 11, 2020 edition of Techlife News.
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This story is from the January 11, 2020 edition of Techlife News.
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