No service when power is out

T-Mobile relies more on battery backup than other carriers. The batteries are supposed to last for hours but sometimes it's only minutes. This is something people should consider when shopping for mobile phone service.

CateMcC wrote:

Does anyone know why a TMobile cell phone won't work during power outage yet other providers' phones do? It's frightening to be without power AND cell service!

Sure you are connected to cellular service, and not WiFi calling?

Sometimes cell towers go down on power outages, if no backup power is available.

Tom, I absolutely was not on WiFi calling, have never used it. My husband's phone is older and doesn't even offer the option and he was down. There are a LOT of complaints about this that go back 3 years or so. And everyone who was around us had other carriers and had coverage. It is totally a TMobile issue. 

I have this same problem-

During the last 3 outages our phones and internet all quit working-

It’s really quite annoying considering there is no other way of contact-

In some areas, T-Mobile has no backup generator/batteries for outages, while other carriers do.

In my experience, T-Mobile has fewer backup generators/batteries for outages.

Recently in the middle of the city, T-Mobile’s site was down - power outage for a few blocks.

Similarly, in a different area with the California power safety shutoff (planned, no less) T-Mobile has service from ~10 miles out attempting to reach (no backups), while AT&T typically during the season has portable generators chained to the street mounted utility poles during the fall season.

As a sidenote:  AT&T == FirstNet = first responders, so they have a bit of an obligation to have service running.

As mentioned above by @drnewcomb , if you’re in an area with frequent power outages/storms and rely on service … you might want to take power outages into consideration 

When this happens not even texting is possible-phone says SOS-

All fails-

krunchnik wrote:

When this happens not even texting is possible-phone says SOS-

All fails-

T-Mobile could solve this problem very easily: just open up AT&T’s blocked LACs in areas where T-Mobile’s sites are down.

You need to be careful about assuming that the system is down when the Internet stops working. When the power goes out, most people have only their cell phones for communications and they lean on them really hard. This saturates the cellular capacity bringing traffic to a crawl. It's operating at full speed but it wasn't designed for the load. If you can send and receive texts (SMS) the system is working.

Yeah - in many areas, I wish T-Mobile would have their ‘limited domestic roaming’ available