AT&T cellular maxed out?

I have an iPhone, and lately it's been dropping calls inexplicably. I say inexplicably, because it's worked pretty good up until now, and many times the phone is sitting perfectly still with many bars. It's just that their network is overloaded.

According to Sascha Segan's column in PC Magazine, AT&T is looking to ameliorate this problem by putting small cell nodes in people's houses and businesses and then using VOIP through their internet connection to get back to ma bell. Maybe VOIP will be as good as cell phone service, but in general it suffers from dropped audio whenever the cable bandwidth gets used by someone else in the household (or by me, trying to follow a web conference). It's not a great solution.

From a ham radio perspective, what I find interesting about this is that it's a warning sign: the cellular network has no resiliency, no ability to handle the slightest increase in demand as would be caused by a disaster.

When you consider that many people are "cutting the cord" and getting rid of traditional phone service, cell phones have moved from a luxury to a basic necessity. But it's clear, that need is not going to be met in a disaster, even a minor one; the cell phone system will gridlock.

And that's if all the cells remain functioning. If a disaster knocks out a small but significant percentage of cells, even normal cell phone usage will become very challenging.