Wireless association. They represent all the Wireless Companies. Mr. Guttmanmccabe, overall what was the effect of sandy on your member organizations, the verizons, the at ts, sprints, etc. Guest sure, peter, and thanks for having me back. If you dont mind, i wouldnt mind taking a half step back and providing perspective on this storm and ultimately the impact that it had. If you listen to mayor bloomberg who said that the damage was unprecedented, that it maybe the worst storm that the city has ever faced and the tidal surge previous high was 10 feet, for this storm was 14. Governor christie said the damage in new jersey was unthinkable. I mean, we had fires, we had hurricaneforce winds, we had massive flood, we had sleet and snow. If you look at that and the flooding through the subway systems and the shutdown of the stock exchanges, you start to get a sense of the massive scale and scope of this storm, and yet the networks performed. Ive read dozens of stories about how for many consumers their only tie to any sort of information or to people was through their smartphone, you know, linking social media and their smartphone. So while there was, obviously, an impact on cell sites, i think the networks performed really, really pretty well. Host 25 of cell towers went down . Were they are cell towers hurricane proof . Guest sure. Well, first of all, i think its important to note when you say 25 of cell towers were impacted, that doesnt mean 25 of service was impacted. Cell towers, some of them are capacitybased to add additional capacity maybe in rush hour or high traffic areas, but a lot of them are to provide basic service. When you say 25 were impacted, that doesnt mean service was down by that. Obviously, some were impacted, and our powers rely on two things; power and backhaul. And each one could have an impact on whether or not that towers up and running. And i think we found out in sandy that it was about even, the split. Some of it was was that there was a lack of power, and by power were not talking hours. In many instances we have people who are without power now. Were talking days and weeks without power. And yet we were able to get, you know, generators in there, get additional fuel, make sure that the, you know, where towers went down that were critical towers we got them up pretty quickly, and as an industry i think you saw those numbers, really the next day went down and day after that went down, and you saw creative efforts by carriers, some of them linking networks together, you know, others really getting fuel very quickly out to the generators so that the cell sites were back up and running. So i think it was, i think you saw, and it seems like the press sort of has proved this out that there were a lot of folks who were able to utilize their phones in spite of the fact that there wasnt power and the land lines werent working. Host well, mr. Guttmanmccabe, if we could talk about that land line issue because a lot of people have kept those land lines for soof called emergencies, and it appears right now, it looks like the wireless phones were more reliable than the fiberoptic, the noncopper type wire lines. Guest sure. And, you know, the reality is, again, were talking a storm of almost biblical proportions. So it had an impact on the wire line networks. But it also had an impact on the subways, and it had an impact on all transportation and bridges and tunnels. And so, you know, the reality is this was something that caused some serious, you know, some serious impact on infrastructure. And yet i think as you say, you know, the Wireless Networks performed pretty well. And part of that is the efforts by the carriers in advance of the storm to preposition materials, to make sure that they had backup supplies in place and that wherever possible they do have backup power. And in instances where they could, they brought in satellite trucks to actually use satellite to backhaul the information, avoiding where it was necessary, avoiding the Land Line Networks and using satellite. Using generators, using batteries to really try and keep the network up and running. Host now, what about b Emergency Communications . How were they affected . Guest the psaps, the Public Safety answering points, the folks who field 911 calls, very few of them went down. Theyre sort of consolidated so they dont have a lot of areas that they have to really protect. So we saw that 911 worked well, and i think the Mayors Office in new york city talked about, boy, use text where you can. I think thats a good message to deliver to consumers. Use texting wherever you can, leave the phone calls to 911, to the really important calls. And otherwise use texting or use your data connections to gather information. Host did the spectrum get flooded with information and overloading . Guest sure. Their, i mean, usage was pretty tremendous, and we found this out wherever you have an issue where theres people who need information, you find that the networks really get flooded. I saw numbers two, three, four, five hundred to 15,000 increases on some web sites. And you saw in a lot of the Application Stores that the apps that quickly ran to the top were those that gave you access to information or the mobile flash light, i think, was one of the other ones that really found sort of a lot of people downloading it. But there was a surge in traffic; but i didnt see numbers that suggested there was a significant amount of Call Blocking or dropping. I think the networks handled the surge pretty well. Host now, were taping this interview on november 15th, and i was in Lower Manhattan last night and had a lot of trouble connecting on my ipad and on my cell phone. Is that still due to sandy . Guest yeah. I mean, we there are still areas in Lower Manhattan and the boroughs that dont have power, and in those instances, i mean, one of our carriers is using 100,000 gallons of fuel a day. Thats just one carrier with 1500 generators that are going. So, you know, there will be a time period before we get back up to full capacity again, but that isnt, you know, for lack of trying. I think its important to repeend mind people that the remind people that the folks who run these companies are consumers, theyre family members. Their goal is to make sure these networks are up and running both personally and professionally. And i think youve seen that. Some of the employees houses were destroyed, they moved into, you know, company quarters, they moved into some of the, you know, the store fronts to actually run their operations from there, and, you know, its an effort when you see a storm of this magnitude. Its really an effort to try to get everything back to completely status quo. Host christopher guttmanmccabe, your industry prevented or fought fcc recommendations that there be backup power at cell towers, etc. , and last week on a blog post you said that 8hour mandated backup power would not have been a panacea anyway because of this storm. Guest well, if you think of this storm, and if you can visualize the scope of the storm as it approached the coast, the storm wasnt even through the areas when the eight hours had passed, right . Many people lost their power, and the storm was still hitting them for another 1224 hours. And for certain areas were talking 360400 hours without power. And so when you look at it in the context of a sort of mandated eighthour backup requirement, certainly it would not. I mean, logically, it would not have been a panacea. And what we saw with our industry was the ability to react flexibly, to be able to relocate assets from areas that werent hard hit and to utilize resources in a way that makes the networks run well. I think if you look back at the Hurricane Katrina recommendations before the fcc acted, those recommendations were for a voluntary, flexible framework. And so thats what we were pushing. We dont disagree with the goal of the fcc to keep the networks running, of course we dont. Thats in every carriers best interests, its in the industrys best interests. Its just how do you go about doing this. And so for us when you look at a storm of this magnitude, its having the ability to react, to move assets around. We had carriers that had to put in, you know, thousands of feet of power cables to drag, you know, cables up to the rooftop to Power Generators so that we could have cell sites working. Host well, lets go back to katrina in 05. What kind of investment have Wireless Companies done to improve their reliability during such emergencies . Guest sure. So you see carriers in every instance where its possible putting in backup power, and you can imagine instances where its not. We put towers in on church steeples, we put them on the side of buildings in mayor metropolitan areas, you know, in closets within buildings. And it becomes difficult in certain areas to have backup power. And yet, you know, the carriers try to put in batteries where they cant put in generators. Where they can put in generators, they put it in with as much fuel as allowed, but when youre working with zoning restrictions or environmental laws and limitations, you know, you have to work within those confines. And the yeaiers learn something carriers learn something with every Natural Disaster or every storm that they face. They learn what is the right floor to put equipment on, what is the right floor to put how much fuel do you need, how many, you know, we call cows and colts which are cell sites on wheels or light trucks. And the carriers get better. They learn how to work with fuel vendors in advance so that they have this hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel in reserve. They learn how to coordinate with First Responders in advance and before, during and after. We meet with fema and the department of Homeland Security and the fcc in advance of a storm like this, in the leadup in the days, you know, while its happening and in the days of after on multiple, multiple calls to make sure that the folks have their right credentials in the place to be able to get through blockades that Public Safety puts in place. So, you know, the investment is ongoing, and its tremendous to make sure that these networks continue to run. Whats the cost of this storm to your member organizations . Guest you know, its not something that i dont think anyone really looks at. I think they look at it as part of, you know, the business of making sure their networks are up and running, that consumers continue to get served. I havent seen a number, i dont expect that i will. But, again, i dont think its i mean, obviously, its important in the context of, you know, of the companies continuing to operate, but it pales in comparison to the desire to keep the networks up and running. Host will consumers see a rate increase because of the costs . Guest you know, i dont expect so, but, you know, we generally dont really focus on those sorts of things at the trade association. But, again, when you look at the efforts and the desire to keep the networks running, that is something thats paramount to these companies. St and finally, mr. Guttmanmccabe, if you attend or if the fcc, you know, has an oversight hearing or looks at this issue of sandy and telecommunications, whats your, whats your top line to them . What are you going to tell them . Guest so, you know, again, we share the same goals as any Government Official which is to make sure that the networks are up and running. And i think it would just be a matter of maintaining, you know, and insuring that theres education, that people understand the scale and scope of this disaster, that carriers did a lot to preportion terms, that the preposition materials and that they were up and running and then work with Public Safety and work with Government Officials to make sure that people have access to fuel when its necessary, that they can get their supplies through, that theyre not subject to parking restrictions or restrictions on high occupancy vehicle lanes that, you know, fuel isnt confiscated at certain areas. And new york and new jersey did a great job. But there are always lessons to learn. Host christopher guttmanmccabe is the Vice President of Regulatory Affairs at ctia, the wireless association. Youre watching the communicators on cspan. And now joining us from basking ridge, new jersey, is robert mudge who is the president of consumer and mass business markets for verizon. Mr. Mudge, what was the overall effect of Hurricane Sandy on verizon in the northeast . Guest hi, peter, thank you for having me, and i want to get right into that, but first, i cant help but say how much my heart goes out to all the people ive seen and the millions of impacted customers and other people from this storm. And its been great to be out with our employees and see what people are coming through together. So, peter, this was a pretty impactful storm, as you know. It hit us right, right in the middle of our operating area in new jersey and calm at us came at us with a path that was a thousand miles wide. So it impacted us both in our physical distribution plant, our poles and our cables as you might expect both from the wind and from the storm surge and in our Central Office facilities where we lost power, and our backup power process really had to kick in and carry over 300 Central Offices that were impacted at the peak of the storm. Host so how many, how many folks lost power, has everybody gotten it back on . If you could speak to that. Guest sure. So, you know, we had based on, again, the width of the footprint, we had, we had upwards to five and a half, six million of our customers who had lost power. So folks really felt the impact and, again, we felt that on the Central Office side also. At the peak of the storm, we had over a million customers or out of service. All of the fios customers as soon as power came back, most of their service was restored. And now a couple weeks later were doing the final touches on the physical replacement of poles and cables. Because in many cases we had to work with or go in after the power was restored, and we were safe and it was able for our folks to work aloft or even in some of the manholes. So one of the Lessons Learned was that fiber is very resilient, and we had good success with that network. On the Central Office side, we had other, you know, very important impact. Many people are aware of the impact on southern manhattan where the storm surge actually took out the power plants from both our west street and broad street Central Offices, which is, again, right down in that southern tip of manhattan. But we had almost 300 others. All of those Central Offices are back one way or another. The vast majority are on commercial power. We have a handful that are still on our generators including broad street, and by partner and i, tony malone, expect the broad street co to be back on commercial power within a matter of days. Host now, mr. Mudge, are there limits to cell phone and Internet Technology when it comes to an emergency like this . I mean, 40 of americans are now land lineless, they dont have land lines anymore, just cell phones. Guest well, the cell phone network, again, i can speak a little bit more broadly. Each at the height of the even at the height of the storm, our Wireless Network was operating at 94 capacity. Were already back to full capacity prestorm. So i think many people, peter, not just through the telecommunications, but with the power outage, you know, learned and found out that electricity is very important along with telecommunications. So i think its a reminder that for many of our customers that good Wireless Service and good wire line service is very helpful, because they can help offset each other. Host now, do the socalled triple play packages that that e offered by the Cell Phone Companies and verizon and others, do they have the same reliability as the old style telephones with the copper wires, etc. Guest it does. I think theres a little difference in the architecture that make it a little bit different, but by and large weve seen that fiber is, in fact, more resilient than copper. When the powers out, it will impact fios, although we do have a battery backup so there could be emergency call, and then again going back to your other point where theres a crossover with wireless usage, you know, that gives customers a lot of comfort in terms of their ability to make an emergency call or reach a loved one. When the powers out and tvs are down and pcs are down, then that internet and tv usage is kind of impacted more broadly than just the telecommunications. But, again, we really found that once we got power back we actually returned service back to our fios customers, our fiber customers quicker than we have with some of our copper customers. I happened to be in long beach, long island on one of our worksites just the other day, and i think its a really good example. Its a community with about 16,000 customers. Our camper plant were still car per plant were still trying to repair, and i expect well migrate over to fiber because 10,000 fios customers in that community are back in service. So i think, peter, you know, a hurricane is one thing, a snowstorm can be another, daytoday thunderstorms. I think the context of reliability needs to be thought through many different potential events, not just one. And our data is very clear, the fiber is more resilient in a storm, and it has greater opportunity for faster restoral. Host mr. Mudge, if i could, id like to get you to respond to what a member of the fcc had to say about Hurricane Sandy and telecommunications. She said it is time for an honest conversation about Network Reliability in the wireless and digital age. Guest its an interesting question. I think its one weve been asking ours