Millions of Verizon customers lost their cellphone service this past Monday for about 8 hours. Nearly a week later we still have no idea of the cause because Verizon has not issued an explanation. It’s very strange that we’ve not seen stories in the press about this, raising the possibility that it might have been sabotage and not equipment failure.
We’ve become so used to being connected all the time that losing connection was surprising and left some of us with a sense of vulnerability. This is something we can no longer take for granted, especially for those that have no landline phone at home.
I’ve thought about what this all means and wanted to share some random thoughts:
Cellular connections are in surprising places – Losing cell service affected many things we never expected. Parking lot payment terminals, parking meters, credit card terminals, and vending machines, are just a few things that rely on a cell connection to operate and process payments. When cell service goes down none of these work.
GPS needs cellular – Apple Maps and Google Maps rely on cellular to provide directions. How many became lost or turned onto an unfamiliar road just before their service went out? Those using a car’s built-in GPS might have fared better, because it uses satellite to connect, but most of us don’t subscribe because Google or Apple maps are usually better and free. Perhaps we should once again carry paper maps in our car.
Emergency calling – Many rely on cellular as their only connection, having canceled their home phones years ago. Fortunately cell phones still allow us to call 911 because they are designed to operate on multiple carriers.
What’s wrong with my phone? – During the outage many thought their phone was not working and kept trying to reset it to no avail.
App-enabled services were lost – Services that use an app on our phone and rely on connectivity suddenly became unavailable. You couldn’t call an Uber and they couldn’t let you know when they would arrive. And you couldn’t call Door Dash or Uber Eats to deliver your lunch.
Home WiFi cellular still needs cellular – Even though our phones are designed to use a WiFi connection to make calls from home when the cellular signal is weak, that doesn’t work without cellular service.
Alternatives – With a WiFi connection you can still communicate using WhatsApp, messaging, and FaceTime.
People turn to Starbucks – With Starbucks having one of the countries largest free WiFi, many went there for the day to hang out and do their work.
Are two phones better than one? – Android phones and resellers of cellular services have become so inexpensive it’s now affordable to have two phones. Good Android phones start at about $200 and full cellular service is available for $15 per month from Mint Mobile and others. So for under $500 a year you can have a backup. Amazon even sells cases for two phones.
Family Plans – Most of us have family plans where everyone in the household has the same carrier. The outage showed how bad an idea that is, because when one member loses connection, every family member does as well.
A possible solution – It would seem to be a good idea to have an alternative way to make calls from our phone in case a cellular outage happens again. The good news is we have the technical means to do that using our phone, if just someone offered that service.
Most smart phones can use multiple eSIM cards; they allow us to connect to a second carrier using an app. In an outage we could simply switch to the other carrier. Today most cellular companies require us to make long term commitments or charge us even when we don’t use their service, but that could easily change. The service could be sold as an option, call it backup call Insurance, for a couple of dollars per month, that only charges us when we use the service. The provider could be one of the cellular companies or a company like Apple that offers the backup service as an option on iPhones. Apple loves to sell high-margin services, and this would fit right in.
…But…. We never used to be connected all the time and we survived just fine. We used pay phones, recording machines, or just decided to connect at a later time. And maybe we were no worse off. Some would say being connected all the time is damaging to our mental health and our ability to pay attention to something right in front of us.
A landline is still a smart investment. It works even when cellular doesn’t. It provides 911 with an instant locator (while cellular requires many minutes for triangulation), especially if you can’t say anything. (Just ask Oscar Munoz, ex-United CEO, about when he suffered his massive heart attack.) And it’s still the best way for your security alarm system to connect with the monitoring station. It’s cheap insurance. Just ask any full-time first responder.
It’s undoubtedly good if you can afford the investment (and most middle-class and up families probably can). But basic wired phone service has become so pricey ($40+/month) that moderate income and below families probably can’t. Of course, they’re also likely to be unable to afford a security system.
Landline service, when it is available (some carriers no longer even offer!), is usually pricey. With two cell phone plans already, no reason to waste more money on a landline, which we finally got rid of over a decade ago when the line stopped working and it took Verizon a week to come and fix it.
You’re right that we once lived without cell service but today, sadly, too much is on our phones that we need for everyday personal and business use. (I can’t pay for public transportation without my phone working as the MTA is now using OMNI.