And you can send emails with text message too, best to know how your carrier handles this before hand.

The thought of authorities shutting down the towers seems like it would do more harm than good. There would be a very slight chance of preventing a remote activation of a bomb, while there would be a 100% chance of hindering at least some emergency operations. Plus, the authorities would open themselves up for many expensive civil lawsuits for years to come. Lawyers would have a field day. There would be at least a few victims (maybe even dead victims) who would receive severely delayed medical care as a foreseeable result of not being able to communicate how the victims otherwise could have.



Interesting, I only know about the other way around (sending text via email). I'll have to learn what you mentioned.

...easy, thanks.

Texting (without pictures) is always preferable in that kind of situation. Text messages take very little band width. When the system is overloaded and/or signal strenght is poor, you can often get a text message through when voice is hopeless. And since you are using less bandwidth yourself, you make more available for others. A win-win.

Dagny - thanks for posting. Very good piece of info.

It's sensible that the police would want to shut down cell phones. I wonder how "specific" such a shutdown is ... how localized is the area where the phones do not work? That would be interesting to know.

Also, it seems like if cell phone service is shut off then texts and calls would both be unavailable. Maybe there is something that I do not understand. Can they just shut down calls, but still enable texts??

Pete2

A text requires a very limited amount of connectivity. So, a mobile phone can reach out and get a crappy connection to a cell tower that's a farther distance away, while close towers are shutdown. It doesn't matter that the connection is distant and crappy because the data being transmitted is a quick burst of text.

Anyway, I really would like to know the definitive answer to what the authorities did. I maintain what I said above.

Text messages, aka SMS, are sent differently than data or voice, so even if voice calls don't get through or you can't access your facebook home page to request rescue, it's worth trying an SMS.

SMS and data in particular are protected from garbling and static. There's less danger of someone mis-hearing something important.

Regarding the injuries,seems leg injuries and amputations,wonder if bomber designed it to do that.

A sick situation,wonder what the perp is about???

Was this thing designed like a Claymore?

Don't rely on landlines, either. When hurricane Ike decimated Houston the landlines that weren't taken out by trees were commandeered by emergency services. We didn't have phone service of any type (cell or landline) for ten days and even texts took up to 24 hours to be sent.
-Blast

Was the Internet working for anybody? Cable or satellite?

an old Princess or push button digital phone and one of these RJ11 to alligator clip adapters might be a good addition to your car supplies, in case you need to "borrow" telephone service... connect the red and green...
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/314xcyJJekL.jpg