Quote Originally Posted by Tandem25 View Post
I would still think that our Govt. would be using what communications sytems that are still functional to get messages out.
If anything, the "Powers That Be" love to let the public know that any and all situations are "under control" and there is nothing to worry about.
If I remember correctly, The Tower had been monitoring t.v. transmissions. Right? Weren't cell phones working for a while too? The "developed" governments of the world have the ability to send out mass texts to the public via cell phones. I wonder why that hasn't happened. Maybe what authorities are left are too busy trying to survive. I just think that if a place like The Colony can exist then there is no reason that we can't assume that some of our government is left. Somewhere.
If I'm remembering correctly the power went out pretty fast, like within the first day. The Govt. wouldn't respond that quickly. Also with the radios and cell phones, the towers that broadcast to them are on the same power grid as the city and when that goes so does the ability to communicate to those areas. Now lets say that there are safe places outside the infected area, those people are going to have to be broadcasting on the same frequency and on roughly the same equipment that the intended recipeints are on and using. Chances are that that won't be the case. Also the Rockies are a huge barrier that will block those signals. Maybe the Govt. could try broadcasting on Sirius and XM. But with people using mobile internet devices (iPad's Cell phones Tablets and whatnot) to keep themselves entertained on the commute to work a signal reaching them is unlikely as the source of their connectivity is usually less than a mile away and once that dies so too dies the means to communicate and get that person a message. With all our fancy toys we are alot more valnerable when they go down. Gone are the days of land-line communication. If the shit hits the fan we're pretty much back to using morse code and smoke signals.

Now the other thing to consider, During the begining of the outbreak everyone and their mother will be taxing the hell out of the system using their cellphones and whatnot. Normally the system works because one tower can handle the normal limited ammount of texts and calls compared to the larger number of cellphones in it's range. A good example of this is when everyone jumps on the phone at 12:00:01 on Dec. 31st and you get dropped calls like a mofo. Or even if you try and use your phone during a concert or sporting event (like what happened to me this weekend at a U2 concert when I tried to text a picture).

Our communications systems are fragile and when the shit hits the fan we use redundant systems in the surounding areas. An example is New Orleans during Katrina. The radio broadcasts were comming from neighboring areas and from stations that ahd backup generators. But without govt. assistance those generators aren't going to last. That's why in the KCverse there was some bits of news about the outbreak but that died out as the infection spread.

I hope I'm not comming off gloom and doom here... Civilian systems of communication are more fragile to chaos than the govt. and military systems and since most civilians aren't owners of a SINCGARS or even a PRC-77 there isn't much of a way for the govt. to get a hold of you during a crisis on the scale that KC has developed.