July 2005 • Volume 3 • Number 8

By Robert Green, Senior Editor
 

How useful are cell phones in the hour following a terrorist attack such as the July 7 attacks in London?

According to first reports from bomb sites around the victimized city, cellular systems either crashed or were deliberately turned off by officials moments after they realized a terror strike was occurring. By 10 a.m. on the 7th, one of the largest providers, Vodophone, had reached capacity and the company had initiated emergency procedures to keep prioritized lines open, according to a BBC report.

Other systems had shut down altogether, raising speculation that police and counter-terror officials feared bombs were being triggered by terrorists using cell signals, as they sometimes are in roadside IED attacks in Iraq. In any case, cell phone reliability was apparently spotty at best.

On the other hand, where mobile camera phones remained operational, news services and perhaps security officials too, leveraged a bounty of what is being called “user-generated content,” mobile phone pictures from sites where witnesses became instant journalists recording mostly grainy images of the devastation.

The London attacks probably resulted in more such material than even the tsunami, as mobile and cellular camera capacity is ever-increasing.

Market researchers Gartner say that more than half the 150 million phones sold in Europe this year will have a built-in camera for capturing still images. Many will also have video recording capability.

"We'll see a lot more event-based reporting from individuals who happen to be at the right place at the right time," a Gartner official told Yahoo News.

In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in America, both the Washington, D.C., and New York City areas built emergency cell reliability into first responder systems, as most of those systems failed during the 2001 attacks here. According to early reports including one from an American homeland security consultant, authorities in London have also been working to ensure that first responder cellular systems remain operational during terrorist events.