Hurricane Ike has left a 'cellular' impact on College Station.
Students who have AT&T service have been experiencing problems when using cell phones.
"I don't receive text messages. It is really hard to make calls ever since Ike has struck," said AT&T customer Patrick MacKey, a junior accounting major.
"I have not been able to receive any calls ever since Ike has struck. It takes at least five attempts to make a call to someone," said another AT&T user, Mayura Shinde, a graduate public health major.
"I am having a lot of problems with cellular [service]," said Michael Leary, a senior engineering technologies major. "I am dropping a lot of calls and there is no data reliability in the network anymore. I can't seem to send emails with my phone as [I could] previously."
Because wireless calls travel over airwaves, any wireless phone can be obstructed by bad weather. The cell phones work in tandem with tower transmitters, which interact with other transmitters so we can make and receive calls.
A phone signal may have to pass through several towers to connect a call. During hurricanes, the towers are affected by either physical damage or an insufficient energy supply, which is how the ability to make calls and transfer data is lost. During disasters, many people are trying to get through at the same time and leads to network congestion and difficulty making calls.
"Three hundred and eighty seven towers have been affected by the hurricane on [Ike's] route," said Marcus Graham of the telecommunication department at Texas A&M.
"This has also led to an increased load on the other towers causing network congestion and making it difficult to make calls. It is difficult to comment on why AT&T selectively has been affected."
AT&T has a large number of towers in the hurricane-affected zones, leading to the breakdown of services. AT&T is working on restoring the services and has sent technicians from other states to speed up the process.
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