Cingular Wireless Is Prepared for Hurricane Ivan in Mississippi

Cingular Wireless Is Prepared for Hurricane Ivan in Mississippi
Carrier Executing Emergency Preparedness Plans as Hurricane Ivan Approaches the
Gulf Coast 


OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss., Sept. 14  /PRNewswire/ -- As dangerous Hurricane Ivan
threatens the Mississippi coast, Cingular Wireless is readying its technicians
and emergency equipment and making plans to re-direct Ocean Springs Call Center
activities in the event of an evacuation.  The National Hurricane Center (NHC)
has issued a hurricane watch for the northern Gulf of Mexico Coast from East of
Morgan City Louisiana Eastward to St. Marks Florida.  No matter where landfall
occurs, a wide area of the Gulf Coast will be affected because of the storm's
size.  Hurricane force winds extend outwards as far as 100 miles from the eye,
and winds of tropical storm strength stretch 200 miles. With more than 150,000
calls placed every day to emergency personnel from wireless phones, Cingular
wants its customers to know it is prepared and ready to respond as needed to
keep them in contact with those important to them.

"Wireless devices have become a critical communications tool for staying in
touch with loved ones, colleagues and other important contacts, especially
during emergency situations," said Ron Cates, Network Director -- Cingular
Wireless -- Alabama/Louisiana/Mississippi.  "Cingular has over 20 years of
experience in providing wireless communications during severe weather and we
are committed to providing our customers with the wireless service they need,
when they need it."

Cingular's Hurricane Ivan Preparations

* Refueling back up generators and testing all fixed and portable generators to
ensure they are functioning properly.

* Deploying teams of engineers and technicians to targeted areas of the state
to monitor back up power at cell sites.

* Executing network staging areas in Baton Rouge, LA, Bessemer, AL and Mobile,
AL where additional emergency equipment and personnel can be quickly deployed
to the impacted areas of the state.

* Transporting over 60 additional generators from surrounding states to be
deployed from local staging areas as needed.

* Bringing in additional network technicians from other states to assist as
needed and crews of electricians and other specialized personnel on stand by.

* Staging more than 35 COLTS/COWS (self-contained/portable cell sites) and more
than 100 generators at emergency network facilities throughout the region.

* Retail locations will be open as long as possible to provide assistance to
customers while considering mandatory evacuation orders and employee's
personnel safety.

* To ensure that emergency responders have access to wireless communications,
Cingular has provided more than 100 phones/free airtime to emergency agencies
across coastal Mississippi.

* Preparations for an emergency evacuation are being made at the Ocean Springs
Call Center where more than 1,000 people are employed.  The facility may need
to be shut down Wednesday or Thursday at which time, calls will be re-routed to
Cingular facilities outside the state.

Cingular is Prepared for Severe Weather

* Cingular's Regional Network Operations Center (RNOC) monitors and maintains
its wireless network 24 hours a day, seven days a week so they can quickly
assess and respond to an emergency situation within minutes.

* Towers and switching centers are designed and built to withstand
hurricane-force winds.

* As electrical outages are common during storms, Cingular's switching centers
have back-up emergency generators.  All cell sites have high-capacity battery
back-up and some have emergency generators, ensuring a secure source for power.
 A fleet of portable generators are also available to provide additional power
sources, if needed.

* Cingular has a fleet of portable, self-contained mobile cell sites (known as
"COWs" or "COLTs"), that can be towed or driven into an area to provide extra
call capacity or to restore communications following a disaster.

As Hurricane Ivan approaches, Cingular reminds consumers of the following
emergency communications tips:

* Program in all of your emergency contact numbers.  Program in 9-1-1, the
police department, fire station and hospital contact numbers, as well as your
family members into your cell phone.

* Have a family communications plan in place.  Designate someone out of the
area as a central contact, and make certain all family members know who to
contact if they become separated.

* Use your text messaging feature on your phone.  This is an easy way to send a
quick message to a loved one's cell phone if you can't call them.

* Monitor weather alerts and bulletins.  Wireless Internet access can help you
keep abreast of important weather alerts during power outages or when access to
a TV or radio is unavailable.

* Keep your wireless phone dray and phone batteries charged at all times.

* Forward your home number to your wireless number in the event of an
evacuation.  That way you will get incoming calls from your landline phone.

* Keep non-emergency calls to a minimum; limit your calls to the most important
ones to conserve battery life.

About Cingular Wireless

Cingular Wireless, a joint venture between SBC Communications (NYSE - SBC) and
BellSouth (NYSE - BLS), serves more than 25 million voice and data customers
across the United States. A leader in mobile voice and data communications,
Cingular is the only U.S. wireless carrier to offer Rollover(SM), the wireless
plan that lets customers keep their unused monthly minutes. Cingular is the
largest provider of GSM services in the United States, and has a 100 percent
digital GSM/GPRS footprint across its service area. It also launched the
world's first commercial deployment of wireless services using Enhanced Data
rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) technology. Cingular also provides corporate
e-mail and other advanced data services through its GPRS, EDGE and Mobitex
packet data networks. Details of the company are available at
http://www.cingular.com/. 

DATASOURCE: Cingular Wireless



CONTACT:  Calie Shackleford of Cingular Wireless, [phone], or





Web site:  http://www.cingular.com/ 

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