FCC Sends Teams to Florida Amid Hurricane Ian

Hurricane Ian caused large wireless outages in Florida's southwest where the storm made landfall, the FCC said Thursday. The FCC report covered network outage data submitted by communications providers through the disaster information reporting system (DIRS) as of Thursday at noon. The FCC will monitor the situation and is "committed" to ensuring communications are restored, said Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel after Thursday’s commissioners' meeting.

The agency sent two teams to Florida before the hurricane to do a baseline survey of communications to be used in storm recovery, Rosenworcel said. She said some spent Wednesday night at the powerless Sarasota Police Department station, standing up a Wi-Fi link there. She said the agency issued multilingual public service announcements and has been in daily contact with local, state and federal officials, and has been asking carriers about the state of their networks. She said the FCC has "aggressively" encouraged carriers to maximize roaming availability on each other's networks. FCC commissioners cited Ian when voting Thursday 4-0 to adopt rules aimed at improving the accessibility of the emergency alert system (see 2209290017).

The FCC DIRS report showed 10.9% of cellsites out in the Hurricane Ian disaster area. Data showed much higher individual outage rates for southwestern counties along the coast, including Lee (65.7%), Charlotte (61.4%), Sarasota (46.2%) and Collier (43.4%). Large outages continued inland in DeSoto (46.2%), Highlands (52.5%), Glades (34.5%), Hardee (64.1%) and Hendry (66.1%) counties.

Cable and wireline companies reported nearly 526,000 subscribers without service in the disaster area for Hurricane Ian, up from 26,716 the day before, the DIRS report said. Six TV, 15 FM and six AM stations reported outages. The DIRS report said 911 calls were being rerouted with location information to other public safety answering points from Glades County Emergency Management, Hendry County Sheriff’s Department, Highlands County Sheriff’s Department and Sanibel Police Department Headquarters.

One hundred portable cellphone towers will support connectivity in southwest Florida, said the Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) office in a Thursday update. The Florida Department of Management Services Telecommunications Division “is working with telecom partners to ensure that the state’s communications networks have redundancies and remain operational for first responders to respond to Floridians during the storm,” it said. Florida Highway Patrol “deployed a mobile command center” to the state’s emergency operations center “to provide enhanced communication capabilities and additional resources,” the office said.

The governor’s office noted AT&T waiving overage fees for postpaid and prepaid customers in affected areas through Oct. 28, and Comcast opening Xfinity Wi-Fi hot spots on the panhandle, central, north and southwest Florida to people who aren’t customers.

Verizon had a “few concentrated areas of impact to our network primarily along the west coast of Florida from Tampa through Naples where the ferocity of the storm concentrated its power,” the carrier said Thursday. “Flooding and debris are preventing access to many places, but teams are completing site surveys and revising restoration plans.” Verizon has “backup generators running at cell sites and switch facilities,” it said. Verizon said affected customers get unlimited services through Oct. 4.

“T-Mobile’s network is generally holding up well,” said the carrier’s Wednesday update. “Some of our sites are on generator power, which will maintain connectivity if there is loss of commercial power. Our network and engineering teams are monitoring the situation closely and will move in to refill generators in impacted areas as soon as it’s safe to do so.” T-Mobile customers in most affected counties will get unlimited talk, text and data through Oct. 3, the carrier said.

The Florida Public Service Commission’s hometown, Tallahassee, “was spared,” emailed a Florida PSC spokesperson. The agency couldn’t detail the hurricane’s impact to telecom networks or pole infrastructure across the state.

FCC Wireless and Public Safety bureaus extended some deadlines for licensees and applicants affected by Hurricane Ian until Oct. 25, the agency said Thursday. Affected entities include those “that operate facilities, or, in a significant manner essential to the business or public safety operation, rely on personnel, records, or financial institutions located in the affected areas to provide services or to conduct substantial business activities with the Commission.” The extension applies to deadlines currently set from Sept. 24 to Oct. 24, the FCC said.

DIRS data for Hurricane Fiona showed about 127,900 cable and wireline subscribers in Puerto Rico without service, down from 132,400 reported the previous day (see 2209280065). Thursday’s FCC report showed 9.5% of cellsites inoperative, down from 11.7% the previous day. The report showed four TV, two FM and one AM station as out of service.