Weather and power cuts take down cell towers

Checkpoint

In the face of more frequent and extreme weather events, and our heavy reliance on mobile phones, is the network robust enough? Last week's storm wiped out cell phone comms for great chunks of Southland and the Power is still out to thousands of homes there. 130 cells towers were knocked off line after the power went down in the strong winds, and with limited battery back ups there was a scramble for generators. Telecommunications Forum CEO Paul Brislen spoke to Lisa Owen.