> His note about cell phone towers losing power was scary. Never really thought about that. I was working for a cellular provider in Michigan when the northeas

> His note about cell phone towers losing power was scary. Never really thought about that. I was working for a cellular provider in Michigan when the northeast US lost power in August of 2003, and we got a taste of this. Most sites have a few hours of battery (maybe more than a few), but only some sites have generators. Fuel storage permits are a hassle, after all. Most cell companies have some trailer-mounted generators they can tow to a few sites that're out due to sporadic storm damage, but this isn't enough when the whole region goes out at once. After the '03 outage, I started seeing generators at a lot more sites! Then it just becomes a question of whether your fuel contractor can visit them all regularly enough to keep them topped up. A local tower tech will probably end up just riding along with the fuel tanker, to unlock each gate, etc.