More than 86% of cell sites remained out in Puerto Rico today due to Hurricane Maria, the FCC reported. “Overall, 86.3% (slightly down from 87.9% yesterday) of cell sites are out of service,” said an FCC outages report, which used data submitted to the agency’s Disaster Information Reporting System (DIRS). “All counties in Puerto Rico, except Bayamon, Guaynabo, San Juan, and Toa Baja have greater than 75% of their cell sites out of service. 27 (down from 33 yesterday) out of the 78 counties in Puerto Rico have 100% of their cell sites out of service. Wireless communications providers are deploying to Puerto Rico Cell Sites on Wheels and Cell Sites on Light Trucks.”

In the U.S. Virgin Islands, “66.0% (slightly down from 67.0% yesterday) of cell sites are out of service,” the report said. “100% of cell sites in St. John are still out of service.”

“The main PSAP in Puerto Rico is offline,” the report also noted. “911 calls are being sent to the other (back-up) PSAP in Puerto Rico, according to the primary service provider. In the U.S. Virgin Islands, the St. Croix 9-1-1 Call Center has been restored to operational status. Both the St. Croix and the St. Thomas 9-1-1 Call Center are reported as operational but unable to retrieve Phase I and Phase II location information for wireless callers and ANI/ALI for VoIP Callers.”

As for cable and other wireline services, the report also said that 10 switches are still out due to either SS7 or toll isolation. The report also said that two TV stations in Puerto Rico are still reported as being out of service, while another is reported as being on the air. The report said that nine radio stations in Puerto Rico reported being out of service. It said that “informal reports” still indicated that one TV station and 22 radio stations were on the air in Puerto Rico. —Paul Kirby, paul.kirby@wolterskluwer.com

Courtesy TRDaily