Overloaded Cell Systems Can Still Send Texts

Although cell phone technology has come a long way since its beginning, it's still not perfect. And when thousands of people in the same area try to make cell phone calls at the same time, the system quickly becomes overloaded and crashes.

Which is definitely NOT good in emergencies.

Anytime something "big" happens, like the crash of the U.S. Airways Jet yesterday in New York, the impulse for witnesses is to call somebody. 911, media, family members, friends - anyone they can get ahold of to request help or share the breaking news. But this totally hampers rescue efforts. The people who really need to communicate to coordinate a rescue effort can't.

So what's the solution? Send a text. When cell phone towers become overloaded because of a high volume of calls, a text message is the most effective means of communication. This has been proven consistently, in many different types of situations.

In fact, those in Washington D.C. who are preparing for the influx of people this weekend and on January 20th for President-Elect Obama's inaguration, are encouraging residents, workers, and visitors to text instead of call. While cell providers will have several temporary phone towers throughout the city to help with the predicted call volume, there is no way to know for sure how the system will ultimately handle all of these calls.

This is proof of how incredibly valuable it is for cities, schools, counties, police, fire and rescue crews to have instant access to broadcast text messaging. When landlines are down and cell phone towers are overloaded by call volume, the nearly instantaneouly transmission of a text message will get out to the people who need to know the information. All the more reason to give CME a call to find out more about about our broadcast texting services!