Cingular Wireless' Network is Prepared for Tropical Storm Bonnie and Hurricane Charley Carrier Executing Emergency Preparedness Plans As Storm Hits Florida Panhandle and Threatens Florida Keys LAKE MARY, Fla., Aug. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Tropical Storm Bonnie has made landfall along Florida's Panhandle and Hurricane Charley is approaching the Florida Keys and Southwest Florida. Cingular Wireless wants its customers to know it is prepared and ready to respond as needed to keep them in contact with family, friends and colleagues. "Wireless devices have become a critical communications tool for staying in touch with friends, colleagues and loved ones, especially during emergency situations," Dave Cundiff, Executive Director of Network Operations for North Florida. "Not only are ordinary citizens able to keep in touch, but emergency responders throughout the state use Cingular Wireless as a communications backbone during severe weather." Cingular Wireless is Prepared * Cingular's Regional Network Operations Center (RNOC) monitors and maintains its wireless network 24 hours a day, seven days a week so they can assess and respond to emergency situation within minutes. * Towers and switching centers are designed and built to withstand hurricane-force winds. * As electrical outages are common during storms, Cingular's switching centers have back-up emergency generators. Cell sites have high- capacity battery back-up and some have emergency generators, ensuring a secure source for power, if needed. * Cingular has Cellular on Wheels (known as "COWs"), which are self- contained mobile cell sites that can be towed or driven into an area to provide extra call capacity or to restore communications following a disaster. * Smaller than a "COW" are "COLTs" - or Cellular on Light Trucks, which are vehicles that can be driven wherever a mobile cell site is needed and include two masts for microwave antennas. * Cingular Wireless has 20 years of experience in providing wireless communications during severe weather. * To ensure that emergency responders have access to wireless communications, Cingular has deployed twenty phones to the Tallahassee Branch of the American Red Cross and ten to Florida's Emergency Operations Center with hundreds of additional phones set aside for other state emergency agencies who may need them. DATASOURCE: Cingular Wireless CONTACT: Dawn Benton of Cingular Wireless, +1-404-236-5305, or cell, +1-404-202-6335, or Web site: http://www.cingular.com/

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