More Than 90% of Cell Site Still Out in Puerto Rico

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More than 90% of cell sites remained out of service today in Puerto Rico, while 66% remained down in the U.S. Virgin Islands due to Hurricane Maria, the FCC reported today. “Overall, 91.1% (virtually no change from 90.9% yesterday) of cell sites are out of service. All counties in Puerto Rico have greater than 75% of their cell sites out of service. 31 (up from 29 yesterday) out of the 78 counties in Puerto Rico have 100% of their cell sites out of service,” the FCC said in an outages report that uses data submitted to the Commission’s Disaster Information Reporting System (DIRS).

There was no change today concerning the operational status of public safety answering points in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. “The two PSAPs in Puerto Rico are currently functioning normally according to the primary service provider,” the report said. “In the U.S. Virgin Islands, the St. Croix 9-1-1 Call Center has been reported as completely down. FEMA has reported significant damage to the building. The St. Thomas 9-1-1 Call Center is unable to retrieve Phase I and Phase II location information for wireless callers and ANI/ALI for VoIP Callers.”

The report still did not provide specific data on cable and wireline system outages, but it said that 18 switches, the same as yesterday, were “out of service due to either SS7 or toll isolation.” The report also said that one TV station in San Juan reported being out of service, while another said it was on the air, and it said that nine radio stations in Puerto Rico said they were down. It said that “informal reports” indicated that one TV station and 22 radio stations were on the air in Puerto Rico.  

Meanwhile, the FCC’s Office of Managing Director today extended from Sept. 26 to Sept. 29 the deadline for parties impacted by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to pay their fiscal year 2017 regulatory fees. It had earlier extended that deadline for parties impacted by hurricanes Harvey and Irma (TR Daily, Sept. 15).- Paul Kirby, paul.kirby@wolterskluwer.com

Courtesy TRDaily