Carrier responses to FCC wildfire prepardness query
Today, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, US Cellular and Verizon have responded to the FCC's inquiry about their prepardness for California wildfires and preventative public safety electric grid shutdowns. PSHB proceeding number 19-251 https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/search/filings?proceedings_name=19-251&sort=date_disseminated,DESC As typical, the carrier responses were mostly happy, happy, joy, joy letters. The FCC asked about backup power readiness, but last year many of the communication outages were because of damaged fiber routes during wildfires isolating cell towers and mobile switching stations. Carriers minimize spending on route diversity in rural areas. COWs, COLTs, etc. use alternative satellite and microwave backhaul, but alternative backhaul is less common for permanent facilities. I didn't hear about any WISPs during last year's wildfires.
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Sean Donelan