OKLAHOMA CITY, August 15, 2003 (PRIMEZONE) -- Dobson Communications Corporation (Nasdaq:DCEL) announced that the widespread power outage late yesterday in the northeastern United States affected Dobson and American Cellular wireless markets in New York and Pennsylvania, but that its wireless networks handled the simultaneous huge increase in cellular call traffic with very limited reductions in service. Affected markets included Erie, Pennsylvania, and the cities of Poughkeepsie and Jamestown, New York, as well as Orange and Duchess counties.
"Our networks in these areas handled a call traffic surge that at times was 400% higher than our normal traffic load," said Tim Duffy, senior vice president and chief technical officer.
"Through the use of back-up batteries and generators, we kept all cell sites operational during peak hours, despite having approximately 300 sites without commercial electric power. All of our cell sites have back-up battery power sources and many have back-up diesel-powered generators that provided power during the early stages of the outage," he said.
"We lost 33 sites in the late evening hours due to back-up batteries being discharged, but as of noon today, we only had four cell sites out of operation," he said. Dobson and American Cellular have approximately 1,720 cell sites nationwide.
"Our networks were designed to accommodate very high usage, and they handled it," he said. "We did not have to shut down any support service, such as message waiting indicator or short messages service. In short, Dobson's cell technicians and switch technicians carried out our network emergency plan perfectly."
The Company's most affected regional markets include the Poughkeepsie Metropolitan Service Area (MSA), Orange County MSA, New York Rural Service Area (RSA) 5 and New York RSA 6. "In these markets, during the peak calling hour of 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. yesterday, we processed 89 percent more calls than we had the same hour one week before," Mr. Duffy said. "For Thursday as a whole, we processed approximately 6.6 million calls in the entire power outage-affected area."
Even at the peak traffic hour, almost 90 percent of wireless calls were completed despite the abnormally high call volume, he said.
"The entire Dobson team - including Network Operations, Engineering, Information Services and the people in our New York, Ohio and Maryland call centers did an outstanding job, pulling together to maintain service for our customers in the Northeast. They did an excellent job," Mr. Duffy said.
American Cellular Corporation is a jointly owned subsidiary of Dobson Communications and AT&T Wireless (NYSE:AWE).
Dobson Communications is a leading provider of wireless phone services to rural markets in the United States. Headquartered in Oklahoma City, the Company owns or manages wireless operations in 16 states. For additional information on the Company and its operations, please visit its Web site at www.dobson.net.