Boasting about wide coverage is all well and good under normal circumstances, but what happens during an emergency? Are carriers prepared for such instances where they might have infrastructures in place that helps keep communication alive and well in the event of an emergency?
That will of course depend from carrier to carrier, but in the wake of Hurricane Michael, it seems that the FCC wants carriers to allow users to switch to different carriers without having to pay any penalties for breaking their contract. This means that if you don’t feel happy about the speed in which your carrier is restoring communications during an emergency, the idea is that you should be able to switch to a “better” carrier without suffering any penalties like paying exit fees.
However this is merely an idea proposed by the FCC and there is no indication that it will be enforced or if carriers will comply (naturally carriers will want to retain their customers). However to some of their credit, carriers like AT&T and Verizon have waived monthly fees for their customers who have been affected by Hurricane Michael, so there’s that. We have yet to see the other major carriers respond in kind, but we wouldn’t be surprised if they had plans for something similar for their affected customers.