T‑Mobile Responds to Southern California Wildfires

Earlier this week, T-Mobile activated its emergency response operations to support first responders and affected communities in Ventura County, Calif. as the Mountain Fire grows to over 20,000 acres, with 7% containment. We’re also closely monitoring winds in Northern California due to previous red flag warnings for more than 27 million people across the state. 

In Ventura County, our network is holding strong with only a small number of sites impacted, and some customers will have service due to overlapping coverage. Our emergency technicians and engineers will assess those sites as soon as conditions safely allow. We’ve deployed additional network resources to the Padre Sierra Parish church in Camarillo, Calif. to support customers, communities, first responders and relief organizations stationed at the church. Here’s more on our support: 

Network  

T-Mobile continually invests in preparing the network for extreme weather, including California’s unpredictable wildfires. Our efforts include leveraging AI, data, network hardening and emergency assets to minimize service interruptions and swiftly recover connectivity following a fire.  

• Across California including Ventura County, T-Mobile’s network has been hardened and reinforced with generators in the event of commercial power loss and additional portable generators are ready to deploy as needed. 
• AI capabilities within T-Mobile’s network — including our Cognitive Self-Organizing Network (SON) and automatic antenna tilting — optimize signal, expand coverage areas and avoid congestion helping to reduce service interruptions through a wildfire’s unpredictability. 
• Overlapping coverage in many areas may further reduce service interruptions.  
• Heavy duty network equipment, including mobile cell sites called SatCOLTs (Satellite Cell on Light Trucks), are on standby with assets already deployed in Camarillo, Calif.  

First Responders 

T-Mobile is actively working with federal, state and local public safety agencies as well as California’s State Operations Center (SOC) in Sacramento to prioritize coverage restoration and meet first responder needs. First responders, emergency officials and other eligible critical infrastructure customers can register for Wireless Priority Service (WPS) to get priority access and preemption at no cost. Agencies needing communications assistance can contact our 24-hour emergency hotline at 888-639-0020 or email ERTRequests@T-Mobile.com.

Community Support

T-Mobile’s teams have been coordinating with the American Red Cross and other agencies to provide Wi-Fi connectivity and charging supplies for customers, communities and anyone who needs it in Ventura County.

For more information on T-Mobile’s emergency response efforts and for tips to stay connected visit: https://www.t-mobile.com/news/emergency-response. For more information on T-Priority, coming soon for first responders, visit: https://www.t-mobile.com/news/business/t-priority-network-slice-for-first-responders. Follow @TMobileNews on X, formerly known as Twitter, to stay up to date with the latest company news.