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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Globalstar Telecommunications Limited GSAT -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: djane who wrote (7399)	9/16/1999 1:04:00 AM
From: djane	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 29987

Cell-Phone Tower Operators Set Up Emergency Measures September 15, 1999 By NICOLE HARRIS Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL With Hurricane Floyd heading for the Southeast coast, some of the nation's largest cell-phone tower operators started rolling out emergency measures. Communication towers are the lifeline of a cell-phone network. Wireless phone calls are bounced from one communication site to the next, where wireless antennae arranged in cells inside a tower pick up the conversation. When a phone user moves from one location to another, the network computer senses the weakening of one signal and "hands over" the call to the next cell site. If a tower is down, a cell-phone call could be "dropped" or disconnected. Cell-phone usage is critical during emergencies. Phone companies typically donate cell phones to Red Cross and other emergency personnel. Tuesday, some residents in the Florida area who left their homes were told to place their cellular-phone numbers prominently on their front doors in the event that emergency personnel needed to contact them. "It's definitely a concern for us," said Terry Armant, senior vice president of operations at SpectraSite Communications Inc. SpectraSite manages towers for carriers like Nextel Communications Inc. Although most cell-phone towers are built to withstand winds of 120 to 135 miles an hour, Floyd has projected winds of 150 miles an hour. As a result, communication-tower operators were moving to ensure that service won't be interrupted -- or that they can speedily provide coverage if the storm inflicts severe damage. 'Cell on Wheels' Mr. Armant said there's "not much you can do to prepare" in the event that an entire tower is knocked out. Still, SpectraSite has arranged for its contractors in the Florida area to be deployed to any towers that topple. The company also intends to utilize temporary towers, known as "cell on wheels," on an emergency basis. SBA Communications Corp., a tower-management company based in Boca Raton, Fla., has shifted operations to its remote operations center in Atlanta. The company said its engineers could run the system remotely by computer. "In a storm like this our main job is to be on standby in the event a tower goes down," said Jeff Stoops, chief financial officer. Carriers such as BellSouth Corp., AT&T Corp., Sprint Corp., and Nextel Communications are concerned about the loss of phone lines, or the possible loss of power. Although local electric companies provide power to the towers, most carriers have emergency back-up power sources in the form of generators and batteries. Nextel, for example, has a permanent generator backup on many of its sites, and keeps portable generators on hand. In addition, Nextel's switching facilities -- where calls are transmitted -- have multiple generator backups. A Major Challenge A spokesman for BellSouth, which has more than five million wireless subscribers in the Southeast, said most of its sites in the Florida area are prepared with back-up generators. He also noted that the phone carrier has many cell-tower technicians standing by. "We've been through this before," he said. But preventing the loss of phone lines remains a major challenge for cell-phone operators. Most wireless calls need a landline to connect each cell site to switching facilities. The connection enables a wireless network to communicate with the public telephone network. If any of these connections are lost, individual cell sites won't work until the landline telephone company restores the connection. Cell-phone company representatives point out that wireless-to-wireless calls don't need a landline connection. "We have some capability to duplicate these services with microwave links, but our ability to deploy this technology will vary on the specific sites impacted and their ability to accommodate a microwave," said James Young, Nextel Florida's vice president of networking engineering, in a statement. If the site is in a disaster zone, it will be difficult to deploy a backup microwave network, he added.