Another disaster story
Not a pearoast, but along the same lines as one of my "The Dark" stories. A local hospital also used cell phones as their 'disaster' communications link. As the cell towers weren't on the hospital, this seemed like a good plan.

Except when they had an actual disaster: all was well, communication-wise, until the news trucks showed up. Suddenly no-one could get a cell line. Turns out each news truck had a dozen cell phones in a rack, all dialed into lines at the station. Tied up all the outgoing circuits, and it was back to pen, paper, and walkie-talkies for the critical hospital workers.
(danalan Pretty good, for an amateur., Wed 5 Aug 2009, 9:16, 2 replies)

Not a bad idea, but...
Isn't it also a feature of big disasters that the mobile networks fall over with everyone texting and phoning home?
(Neil_E_There didn't the Aussies used to be good at cricket?, Wed 5 Aug 2009, 10:31, closed)

If the networks do fall over....
They do have a feature called Access Control Overload that restricts access to certain SIM cards that are issues to people who might need them such as police, etc.....
(peter_griffin, Wed 5 Aug 2009, 12:10, closed)