Sen. Schumer (D-N.Y.) criticized the lack of emergency plans by m...

T-Mobile, had a wireless plan in place and said T-Mobile was one of the smaller carriers in N.Y. “I am especially concerned by reports I have received that police, firefighters and other first-responder personnel were not able to place telephone calls,” Schumer wrote. He laid out a 3-part plan to improve priority service: (1) Imposing a mandatory requirement that wireless providers participate in the wireless priority access system. (2) Increasing the volume capacity for wireless phone systems. Schumer said cellphone services should be able to handle more than 25% of their customers at one time, especially since dramatic rises in cellphone usage were projected for the future. (3) Increasing the power supply backup for cellphone towers. Transmitters lost battery power as the blackout wore on and Schumer said service providers should keep more battery backups and have more portable generators. “Over the years, traditional telephone landlines and most other utilities have developed so-called ‘redundancies’ -- if one power system fails, there is a backup to keep people safe,” Schumer said. “The wireless industry just isn’t there yet, and it needs to catch up quick.” In a letter to the N.Y. Times, CTIA Pres. Thomas Wheeler said there was a “monumental spike in traffic” during the blackout, but preliminary reports showed wireless systems performed well despite the circumstances. “This was an outage of monumental proportions and the degree to which all communications providers worked to maintain service while the power was restored is to be commended, not regulated,” Wheeler said.