Rothstein Associates Inc. Business Survival ™ Weblog

In the wake of recent hurricanes and tropical storms, it’s important to make sure that you have communications available following an event. Here are a dozen tips to ensure that you are able to keep in touch:

1. Have service from more than one provider; if one provider’s service is unavailable, it’s possible the other may still be operational.
2. If possible, have more than one type of mobile phone; many types are available, such as Blackberrys, Treos, iPhones, and others.
3. If you don’t want the added cost of a second mobile service provider, consider a prepaid cell phone that runs on a different network than your regular cell phone.  For example, if Verizon Wireless is your carrier, a Boost (owned by Sprint) prepaid cell phone might be a good complement.
4. Try not to bundle your home phone service, Internet and television in the same provider; if the carrier goes down you lose all those services.  Consider keeping your land phone line with a different carrier than your Internet and TV.
5. If you use digital phone service, such as IP phones, be sure to have a battery backup arrangement, as the phones will not operate without electric power.
6. Despite the desire to use cell phones as your main phone service, it might be important to keep one land line available. If traditional flat-rate service is too expensive per month, see if the carrier offers “message rate” service, which is usually cheaper per month, especially if you don’t plan to use the land line very often.
7. Ask your cell phone and land line carriers what they can offer in an emergency, what it costs, and what they will do to ensure uninterrupted service.
8. Consider texting, not calling. According to T-Mobile, text messaging “has a greater success rate in getting through the network during high-usage periods, versus voice calls.” Texting also helps free up the voice part of the phone network for emergency calls.
9. Program your mobile phones with emergency contact numbers, and add the letters “I-C-E” (for “In Case of Emergency”) next to those numbers and the names of those you would need to reach in a disaster. Do this for your children’s cell phones as well.
10. Make sure cell phone batteries are fully charged. Consider getting a second battery for each cell phone, and make sure they’re charged, as well. Buy battery chargers that work in your car (keep it in the glove box or console), as well as the ones you use at home.
11. In an emergency, have resealable plastic bags available to protect cell phones, pagers, batteries, cell phone chargers, and other devices from water and other damage.
12. If your land line has call forwarding, program that number to forward to your cell phone if you have to evacuate the area. According to AT&T, since call forwarding is based out of a telephone central office, you are more likely to receive incoming calls from your land line even if telephone service at your home is disrupted.

And one more thing to keep in mind – don’t assume that cell or wired phones are going to work! In the event of a major, regional disaster (think: Hurricane Ike). If communication is really critical, you may want to consider a satellite phone.