Thursday, September 21, 2017

FCC: 95% of Cell Sites down in Puerto Rico

Hurricane Maria delivered a devastating blow to the mobile networks in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

As of September 21, 2017 at 11:00 AM EDT, FCC data showed that 95% of cell sites in Puerto Rico are out of service. Critically, 48 out of the 78 counties in Puerto Rico have 100% of their cell sites out of service even nearly 24 hours after the storm passed. The FCC database shows that there are 1,789 base stations in Puerto Rico and 1,703 are down.

In the U.S. Virgin Islands, 77% of cell sites are out of service.

With the widespread power outages in Puerto Rico it is assumed that cable Internet services are also offline for most customers, but the FCC had not received any data on the status of the networks.