Wireless coverage continues to be sparse in some parts of New Jersey and New York City after Hurricane Sandy blasted through the region on Monday. Verizon Wireless and Sprint are working alone to get their networks up and running, while T-Mobile and AT&T are combining efforts to help speed up the restoration of services.
“We are looking to collaborate more broadly on the restoration effort so that we can bring up complete services in an area in a faster manner than if we were working on our own,” Neville Ray, Chief Technology Officer for T-Mobile, told the Wall Street Journal in an interview. Ray said that the two companies will “divide and conquer” the problem and added that it’s better to “have two companies working to bring up one network, rather than two companies working to bring up two networks.”
The two wireless carriers signed an agreement that’ll share the available wireless signals in the area and allow customers from one carrier to use a signal from the other carrier. The pair will also share resources as they try to rebuild parts of their wireless network that was damaged by the devastating storm. Both T-Mobile and AT&T operate GSM-based wireless networks, which makes it easy for them to share physical and cellular-based resources.
[Via WSJ]