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Commission wants most sites to have at least 8 hours of backup power.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — When Hurricane Katrina assaulted the Gulf Coast in 2005, wind and flooding knocked out hundreds of cell towers and cell sites, silencing wireless communication exactly when emergency crews and victims needed it.
To avoid similar debacles in the future, the Federal Communications Commission wants most cell transmitter sites in the U.S. to have at least eight hours of backup power in the event main power fails, one of several moves regulators say will make the nation’s communication system stronger and more reliable.
Two and a half years after Katrina and eight months after the FCC’s regulations were first released, the two sides are still wrestling with the issue.
A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., put those regulations on hold last week while it considers an appeal by some in the wireless industry.
Several cell phone companies, while agreeing their networks need to become more resilient, have opposed the FCC’s backup power regulations, claiming they were illegally drafted and would present a huge economic and bureaucratic burden.
There are almost 210,000 cell towers and roof-mounted cell sites across the country, and carriers have said many would require some modification. At least one industry estimate puts the per-site price tag at up to $15,000.
In a request for the FCC to delay implementing the change, Sprint Nextel Corp. wrote that the rules would lead to “staggering and irreparable harm” for the company. The cost couldn’t be recouped through legal action or passed on to consumers, it said.
Jackie McCarthy, director of governmental affairs for PCIA – the Wireless Infrastructure Association, said the government should allow the industry to decide how best to keep its networks running, pointing out that all the backup power in the world won’t help a cell tower destroyed by wind or wildfires.
“Our members’ position is that the ‘one size fits all’ approach to requiring eight hours of backup power at all cell sites really doesn’t accomplish the commission’s stated purpose of providing reliable wireless coverage,” McCarthy said.
The wireless carriers also are claiming the FCC failed to follow federal guidelines for creating new mandates and went far beyond its authority when it created the eight-hour requirement last summer.
FCC officials have so far stood their ground.
“We find that the benefits of ensuring sufficient emergency backup power, especially in times of crisis involving possible loss of life or injury, outweighs the fact that carriers may have to spend resources, perhaps even significant resources, to comply with the rule,” the agency said in a regulatory filing.
“The need for backup power in the event of emergencies has been made abundantly clear by recent events, and the cost of failing to have such power may be measured in lives lost,” it said.