Residents, emergency services depend on reliable cell phone coverage

By DANIEL SUDDEATH
Daniel.Suddeath@newsandtribune.com

June 22, 2008 07:32 am

— With emergency medical services and police forces depending on cell phone coverage, the need for reliable service is at a premium.
Residents living in fringe areas of cell phone coverage may also find themselves in a scary situation, trying to call for help without a signal and no land-line for backup.
“Obviously if they can’t get a signal, they can’t call,” said Clark County Emergency Management Agency Administrator Brad Meixell.
Two decades ago, the term “dropped call” might have only been heard in a gymnasium when a fan heckled a referee for swallowing their whistle.
The top cell phone service providers in Floyd and Clark counties are vying to make the terminology as rare today as it was before mobile telephones became a fixture of society.
Despite their efforts, officials say there are still areas where service is shoddy.
Meixell has mapped out cell phone towers in Clark County to get a grasp of areas that have the best service. Officials have done the same in Floyd County though the logistics change regularly as companies add new towers. Meixell said the community of Otisco in the northeastern portion of Clark County is an area where coverage is usually poor.
Various providers have invested in towers in different portions of the county, while some have reached agreements to share infrastructure, according to Meixell.
When a disaster strikes, Floyd County EMA Director Terry Herthel relies on his cell phone to communicate with local and state emergency crews.
The problem is thousands of cell phone users can flood the lines making it hard to get through.
“During a disaster, cell phone service is usually one of the first things to go out,” Herthel said.
Herthel recalls storms causing damage in Floyd County that led to poor cell phone service, reducing emergency workers to relying on Ham radios for communication.
He said the parts of the county that seem to have the poorest coverage are in downtown Georgetown and the Greenville Road area.
Georgetown Fire Department Chief Jim Kron said his crews use two-way radios for the majority of their communication, but that can be hit-or-miss as well.
Inside the department’s headquarters off Ind. 62, Kron’s AT&T phone barely gets service, but his Nextel walkie-talkie-phone works fine.
He said the scenario can flip in just a matter of a few blocks.
“We pretty well know where our dead areas are,” Kron said.
Kron worries about residents whose emergency calls depend on how many bars of cell phone service they have.
“A lot of people are getting rid of land-line phone service and relying strictly on cell phones,” he said. “If they don’t have good cell phone service, that’s a problem.”
Utica Fire Chief Jamey Noel said technology helps them pinpoint which cell phone tower a 9-1-1 call originated from in case service is lost.
“We have an occasional dropped call but it’s no major problem,” Noel said.
Clark and Floyd counties have the ability to trace calls to specific cell phone towers, but the technology does not identify an exact location, only an area.

Investing in Southern Indiana
Providers such as AT&T and Verizon have increased their investments in Southern Indiana, while Sprint spokeswoman Candace Johnson said budget cuts have called into question planned upgrades for the area.
The last major Sprint-upgrade for Floyd and Clark counties was in October of 2004, she said.
AT&T announced a $52 million-expansion of wireless coverage for Kentucky and Southern Indiana in March. The company will add 40 new cell phone towers around the region and roll out a higher speed wireless network by the end of 2008.
“High-quality coverage and the ability to communicate wherever you are and however you want — those are our goals,” Jim Thorpe, vice president for AT&T wireless operations for Kentucky, stated in a release.
Verizon has made “significant improvements” over the past two years in Floyd and Clark counties, according to company spokeswoman Michelle Gilbert.
“We’ve got our eye on those two counties,” she said. “I can assure you we are going to add more cell towers in the future.”
Gilbert said the input they’ve received points to happy customers, but added Verizon will “always look to improve coverage.”
Verizon has committed $221 million to service improvements in Southern Indiana since 2000, according to Gilbert.
Verizon’s coverage locator on its Web site, www.verizonwireless.com, shows strong coverage throughout Floyd and Clark counties.
Sprint’s coverage map on their Web site, www.sprint.com, shows strong service near the Ohio River that becomes spotty when heading north on Interstate 65.
Service appears weakest to the north and east of Goshen, as well as between Floyds Knobs and Scottsville Road, to the west of Interstate 265.
AT&T’s coverage area can be viewed at the Web site wireless.att.com. Its map shows good-to-great coverage for nearly all of Clark and Floyd counties.
An area along Port Road to the north of Jeffersonville is shown as not having service available from the company.

What your officials use
Herthel said his crew uses Verizon because they work well with government agencies.
Noel’s fire department uses AT&T.
“It covers most parts (of the county) and people seem to be pretty satisfied with it,” Noel said.
Clark County Commissioner Mike Moore recently took issue with what he called an outdated plan, but said his service wasn’t the issue.
“Verizon has been great,” Moore said.
Moore said Sprint offered a better rate, but the coverage was not as good. He said commissioners who lived outside of Jeffersonville would have had a hard time using their cell phones if they had went with Sprint.
Kron said he uses Nextel and AT&T, depending on the location, so he always has a back-up in case one does not have service.

ON THE WEB
Check out coverage maps for Sprint, AT&T and Verizon at the following Web sites:
• www.wireless.att.com
• www.coverage.sprintpcs.com
• www.verizonwireless.com

DRIVING WHILE TALKING
• A jurisdiction-wide ban on driving while talking on a cell phone is in place in six states: California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Utah and Washington. Localities are prohibited from banning cellphone use in Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon and Utah.
— Insurance Institute for Highway Safety

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