Boston Officials Did Not Shut Down Cell Network After Marathon Bombing

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Motherboard about the immediate aftermath of yesterday's bomb attack in Boston, which attempts to explain the (unsurprisingly) poor accessibility of the cellular network after the blasts: "Gut instinct suggests that the network must've been overloaded with people trying to find loved ones. At first, the Associated Press said it was a concerted effort to prevent any remote detonators from being used, citing a law enforcement official. After some disputed that report, the AP reversed its report, citing officials from Verizon and Sprint who said they'd never had a request to shut down the network, and who blamed slowdowns on heavy load. (Motherboard's Derek Mead was able to send text messages to both his sister and her boyfriend, who were very near the finish line, shortly after the bombing, which suggests that networks were never totally shut down. Still, shutting down cell phone networks to prevent remote detonation wouldn't be without precedent: It is a common tactic in Pakistan, where bombings happen with regularity.)"

Comments

That doesn't mean it wasnt jammed

[headhot]

Why the network operators didn't get requests to shutdown the network, that doesn't mean it wasn't jammed. The military has jammers it uses where they suspect IEDs to prevent triggering via the cell network. There is no reason why the BPD, DHS or other agency would not have jammers for such an occasion. I would be surprised if they did not with all the money that was thrown around after 9/11

Re:That doesn't mean it wasnt jammed

[usuallylost]

I am leaning toward the 50,000 people in the area all trying to call home at once.

Re:That doesn't mean it wasnt jammed

[TheCarp]

> There is no reason why the BPD, DHS or other agency would not have jammers for such an occasion.

Really? And why should they? The entire idea that they should have them is based on specific technical details of specific attacks, and requires both that they guess right that its the right time to use them and that the bomb maker didn't anticipate their use.

Additionally, with all the people involved, they generally want people to get the "Im safe" messages out, because it decreases overall mayhem and people trying to contact them for information.

> I would be surprised if they did not with all the money that was thrown around after 9/11

Well I wouldn't either, but, thats a different issue.

Re:That doesn't mean it wasnt jammed

[Gilmoure]

SMS is one of the lower level cell phone protocols, uses the least bit of bandwidth and is almost always on, even when higher level voice and data fail. Ideally, modern phones could be set up to pass SMS traffic from phone to phone, when a tower signal is unavailable. This would allow messages to get in and out of disaster areas like New Orleans during Katrina.

Re:That doesn't mean it wasnt jammed

[MightyYar]

Presumably, any jamming worth a crap would need to block SMS, which is why I mentioned it.

Re:That doesn't mean it wasnt jammed

[Anonymous Coward]

when I worked in telecom, specing out a CO for site we would generally have enough T1's (24 full-duplex lines) to provide for 20% of the population as that would cover normal traffic at any one point in time. It was always known that during emergencies it would become overwhelmed and low priority calls (you and me) would fail while there are settings to allow high priority calls (emergency responders, police, government, etc) to drop a line in use by someone lower priority and go through.

My bet, is the majority of people starting phoning home to let loved ones know they were all right - the networks aren't designed for that level of instantaneous traffic.

not all that effective

[O('_')O_Bush]

I would think that shutting down cell towers wouldn't be particularly effective, given that the same mechanism that would allow one to trigger a bomb with a cell phone is also present in other RF devices such as baby monitors and walkie-talkies.

Re:not all that effective

[TheCarp]

Totally different threat profile.

A convoy is moving and is a very small target in a very large area. It is especially exposed, and an especially juicy target in a war zone. You can expect attacks fairly frequently, they have to find you/be ready for you.

This event is predefined, the attacker knows where and when the targets will be there. The attacker already has time to prepare and makes himself known on his time table.

This changes everything. In your convoy for example, there is no benefit to rigging bombs to blow when their signal is jammed or even to arm in response to signals from a jammer.... as the prowler is not the convoy and need not be all that close to them, arming or blowing in response to the jammer means wasted bombs or blowing up innocent bystanders, will almost never hit a convoy.

Here we have a totally different scenario. A secondary device triggered by a loss of signal could have huge impact. The devices are already at their pre-determined target. You don't jam, he can detonate, you do jam, they might detonate, point is....you have no way of ever knowing what he planned until its all over.

Then upgrade the cell network

[HeckRuler]

So... considering that's we hear about this with EVERY major catastrophe, would this be the sort of national infrastructure concern that we would want to mandate that the cell companies install extra capacity? You know, in case of emergencies. Are we at the point that we can consider cellular connection, or generically wireless connection, to be a basic utility and not a cutting edge hip new ordeal that only the rich can afford?

And hey, since they've got ALL THAT BANDWIDTH, just lying about in case shit hits the fan, it'd be great to sell it on the cheap. You know, that idea that society and the fundamental utilities is here to foster growth rather than wringing out the last coin from the customer's pockets.

Short memories

[MickyTheIdiot]

Uh.. doesn't this happen after just about every disaster?

If you design the networks to work at the utilization that you see after a disaster there would be cell phone towers at every corner, our bills would be $500 or more a month, and it would be using a very low percentage of its capacity 99.99% of the time.

It isn't what is important at the moment, anyway.

Re:Could be cell phone

[wonkey_monkey]

Officials also announced a twist in the probe: Suspicious packages that were detonated out of precaution were not explosive devices after all.

That's not a twist, it's just a thing. A twist is if it turns out to have been Richard Simmons.

Re:Something's weird here

[kannibal_klown]

As someone who had a loved one in the World Trade Center on 9/11 and couldn't reach her on her mobile until the afternoon, I'm not surprised that a cell network became overloaded. It's happened in other times too.

Considering this wreaked of terrorism, especially to those on the scene, things really blew up. Marathoners calling loved ones and even just REGULAR citizens in Boston (perhaps far away from the site) getting / making calls in a panic, etc.

Cell towers aren't magic, they can only support so much. And since the phone companies aren't using their profits to expand their existing networks then a large metro getting hit with an event is going to overload it... or at least a general region. I mean, in that immediate area alone you had: people living / working in the buildings, LOTS of runners, LOTS of spectators, etc.

Perhaps the feds DID put up a jammer. Perhaps we don't know the whole story. I'm just saying, that an overloaded network sounds perfectly plausible.