[ondy2112]

I've been searching these forums for awhile now and I can't really find quite the information I'm looking for.

We live kind of far out in the country in upstate NY but when all systems are working we get our blackberry voice/text service just fine.... plenty of bars (This is Verizon, and we each have the Curve 8530.) However, a few times since we've had the devices our neighborhood's power has gone out for reasons unknown. The three times since Thanksgiving we've had an electric outage our house has had no power for 1 minute, 5 minutes, and 1 hour respectively. No problem, but what's really baffling us is that after each power outage we can no longer dial or text in/out with our blackberries. What has happened twice and we're waiting on it again since power went out on Saturday, is that it takes about 4-5 days but finally we get clear service and our blackberries start working again.

I know nothing about how cell towers/networks operate so I'm just looking for some possible explanation here. I've never seen an actual tower around here anywhere that would have been within range of the power outage, but I suppose it's possible. And even if the tower were to lose power when my house does, why would it take DAYS for it to start giving us cell service again? I just find it crazy that every time we have even a 1-minute power outage we lose cell service for such a long period of time. If I had a technical explanation it might be easier on my nerves if I knew the "why" this is happening because calling Verizon support does me no good at all.

By the way, I'm not concerned about the data because the signal is never strong enough for that so we use our WiFi for internet.

Thank in advance.

[Laura Knotek]

Do Cell Phones Work in Power Outages? | eHow.com

[ondy2112]

Thanks, that's helpful and I had actually seen that before. While I wish the phones did indeed work during the power outage, I can see some kind of equipment like a tower or a I guess a switch could be knocked out of as well and disrupt us. That makes some sense, but why would it take 4-5 days for this problem to be corrected after only a very short overall power outage? All of my Time Warner equipment and my home network and laptops turn themselves back on by themselves correctly and run fine within 5 minutes after the power comes back on... does Verizon really need a guy to get in a truck and come all the way out here turn-on or reboot whatever equipment had been affected?

[Laura Knotek]

Thanks, that's helpful and I had actually seen that before. While I wish the phones did indeed work during the power outage, I can see some kind of equipment like a tower or a I guess a switch could be knocked out of as well and disrupt us. That makes some sense, but why would it take 4-5 days for this problem to be corrected after only a very short overall power outage? All of my Time Warner equipment and my home network and laptops turn themselves back on by themselves correctly and run fine within 5 minutes after the power comes back on... does Verizon really need a guy to get in a truck and come all the way out here turn-on or reboot whatever equipment had been affected?

I've not usually experienced lengthy delays for service to return, in fact, my service has not gone down during most power outages. However, I live in a fairly large city. The only time I lost cell service for an extended time was during the blackout in August 2003 that took down most of the northeastern US.