[ConservativeMan55]

Did anyone else out there experience this?

[Diogenesis]

In any other time, a pRes_ _ent sabotaging an emergency
would be unthinkable, but today, with this traitor?

[Chickensoup]

was it really cut or just overloaded?

That is the reason I am going back to landline.

[txrangerette]

I’m not up to speed on this, but when a disaster occurs those in charge of response don’t want massive calling going on of people who are trying to get Aunt Susie on the phone to see if she’s ok or to just vent on how awful things are. Those who know the technical reasons why this causes a systems problem can speak to that.

But since this disaster was known to be headed for OK well before it got there I’m thinking this was preemptive.

People would’ve already started massive cell phone use just in the run up to the disaster that was coming.

[OpusatFR]

Before one of the hurricanes a few years ago, the power company here cut the power. Perhaps to minimize fire damage or perhaps to keep the lines from sparking and doing more damage, I don’t know.

Cell phones went down too. No power, no cell phones. The towers only have backup for a few hours.

[txrangerette]

And BTW, again not up to speed, but the systems problem massive cell phone use presents could just be system overload. I don’t know whether it was “cut”, or people overused and it wasn’t possible to get through. That’s why I said, someone with that technical knowledge should weigh in.

But I’m not surprised if it happened hours before the disaster acutally arrived. I heard reports hours ahead that this type of horrendous weather was headed for that area. So people knew it was coming. What you don’t know is the exact time and place and final intensity, but you know it’s going to be bad.

[InvisibleChurch]

is everything a government conspiracy?

[optiguy]

My cell was working as I was telling my wife where to drive to get out of the way in Moore. It worked off and on after as towers were destroyed.

[rarestia]

HAM RADIO

Buy one, get licensed. When the SHTF, they can’t regulate the electromagnetic spectrum. They might be able to temporarily block shortwave communications, but they can’t block radio universally.

[Vermont Lt]

HAARP caused the storm. This is Obamas way of getting himself off the front page. Yes, this too was a government conspiracy.

Or maybe the cel towers were shut down because damage caused by the other tornadoes in the area.

Tighten up that tin foil.

[Zathras]

Most likely the server farm which handles the cell requests powered down.

[jrd]

The phone company only puts in a few circuits to every town or switching office, once they are in use you get the all circuits busy signal ...think of it as a party line first come first serve. during a disaster the network service center will at time try and re route calls another way. if the service was down before the storm it sounds more like a switching office in the area might have booted ( they are very large computer mainframes, they are duplicated but at time have a problem and have to reset them selves...

[OKSooner]

The reason phone service was disrupted was because everyone and their dog was trying to make a call at the same time. :)

Phone systems have a peak capacity of (hangonasecondwhileIpullanumberoutofsomwhere) about thirty percent. At a point service becomes degraded; this is why voice stops and text keeps working. At a point it all stops.

[plain talk]

They wouldn’t “cut” phone service ahead of some storm. There are GETS and WPS which are emergency services they can engage after a mass event that provides priority access to/for certain government and emergency services. It might be possible government agencies (in monitoring and preparing for storm) were taking so much capacity it left little for ordinary calling. That seems unlikely. It’s more likely the storm as it moved east destroyed something that affected regional communications. Just guessing.

[moose07]

“No one could make any calls. Texting worked but no calls. “

Bingo! Text only uses a tiny amount of bandwidth.
Communication is still possible without overloading the servers/exchange.
Which is what causes problems when everybody hit ‘Dial’ at the same time.

[KarlInOhio]

Did they have some type of "reverse 911" system which calls out to every phone? They might have reserved the system for that. I've only ever gotten one call on that system on my landline for a kidnapping/missing child so that wasn't nearly as time sensitive as a tornado.

[Marie]

Within minutes of the Ft Hood shooting, the lines were overloaded. Texts had a better chance of getting out, but I couldn’t get a hold of anyone in the area via cell. I managed to locate my kids via text.

But I could call out (got my mom) on my landline.

It’s amazing how fast these systems hit their limit.

I’m sure that, in the hours leading up to the storms, people saw them coming and were reaching out to family and friends. It’s not like a bomb went off. The Weather Channel was watching this line of storms march in for hours.

[righttackle44]

Please document your reasons for saying the phones went off before the storms. I have been watching TV coverage, and I don't here anyone from Oklahoma saying this.

As well, they are still looking for children. I think paranoia about phone coverage is the very last priority in this horrible time.

[stormer]

Here, this may help...

[B.O. Plenty]

I will go with overloaded by relatives and friends of people in Ok calling to see if everybody is allright.

Everything cannot be a conspiracy, even with this bunch....they are not smart enough.

It takes brains to concoct a really effective conspiracy. All Zer0 slugs IQ's, added up wouldn't make it to 80.

There was no collusion here...just normal human concern....IMO.