How to Reach Your Family When the Network Is Down
What actually happens to phone networks in a flood or earthquake, why SMS often works when the internet does not, how to make a phone last three days, and
Every time a flood or an earthquake hits an Indian district, the same thing happens within an hour. The network goes, and thousands of people are left holding a phone that cannot tell anybody where they are.
This is about what is actually happening to the network, what still works, and how to make a phone last long enough to matter. Most of it has nothing to do with our app, and you should know it whether or not you ever install ORBII.
Why the network dies
Three separate failures, and they compound.
Power. A mobile tower runs on mains electricity with a battery backup that typically lasts a few hours, sometimes a day. When the grid goes down across a district, towers start dropping one by one as their batteries run out. This is usually the biggest cause, and it is why coverage often gets worse on day two than it was on day one.
Damage. Some towers are flooded, blown over, or cut off from their fibre backhaul.
Congestion. The towers still standing are hit by everybody in the area trying to call at the same moment. The tower is working perfectly and still cannot serve you.
What still works, roughly in order
Text messages, more often than you would think. An SMS is tiny and the network can hold it in a queue until there is room. Calls need a continuous channel for the whole conversation, and data needs a lot of it. So there is a common middle state where you have bars, calls fail, nothing loads, and a text still gets through.
If you take one thing from this page: when the network looks broken, send a text before you try to call.
112 and the emergency numbers. Emergency calls can use any operator’s network, not only your own, so a phone showing “no service” can sometimes still dial 112. It is always worth trying.
Worth knowing and keeping somewhere offline:
| Emergency, all services | 112 |
| Ambulance | 108 |
| Fire | 101 |
| Police | 100 |
| NDMA disaster helpline | 1078 |
| Women’s helpline | 1091 |
| Child helpline | 1098 |
Bluetooth, between phones near each other. Two phones can talk directly with no network at all. That is the basis of the mesh described further down.
Battery is survival
This is the part almost nobody prepares for, and it decides more outcomes than any app.
In a flood with no mains power for three days, every hour of phone life is another hour you can be found. A dead phone is not a person who is safe, it is a person nobody can locate.
Aeroplane mode is the single biggest saving. A phone hunting for a weak signal burns power faster than almost anything else it does. If you are in a dead zone, turning the radios off and switching them on for a few minutes each hour can multiply how long the phone lasts.
Then, in order of how much they help:
- Screen brightness to minimum. The screen is the second biggest drain.
- Close everything. Background apps refreshing over a struggling connection are burning power for nothing.
- Stop scrolling. Checking for news is the most expensive comfort available.
- Turn off location except when you are actively sharing it.
- Do not let it get hot. Heat permanently reduces what a battery can hold.
Tell one person, not everyone
The instinct in a disaster is to message everybody. It is the wrong move on all three counts: it drains your battery, it adds to the congestion that is already stopping messages from getting through, and it takes longer.
One message, to one person who will pass it on. Say where you are and whether you are hurt. Then conserve the phone.
What ORBII does when there is no signal
Now the part about our app, and we will be specific about what works today and what does not.
An SMS lifeline. When you have signal but no data, ORBII writes the message for you, with your location already in it, ready to send in one tap. It does not send silently, because Play Store rules do not allow that, but you do not have to compose anything while your hands are shaking.
A Bluetooth mesh. With no signal at all, ORBII passes your alert to nearby phones running ORBII. Those phones carry it, relay it onward, and the first one that reaches a working connection sends it out for you. If the phone that caught it also has no internet, it holds your message rather than dropping it, and delivers it when that person walks back into coverage hours later.
The honest limit: this needs another ORBII phone within Bluetooth range. It works where people are gathered, which is often exactly where people are in a disaster, and it does nothing if you are truly alone.
Place names, not coordinates. ORBII turns a location into something a person can act on, like a building name, with no map service and no internet. And it will only name a place that was properly surveyed, because sending rescuers to the wrong block is worse than giving them numbers.
A roll call, in the next update. One tap asks everyone in your circle whether they are safe. The screen lists everybody, answered or not, and puts the people who have not replied at the top.
That ordering is the entire feature. In a disaster the replies are reassuring and the silences are the information, and what a family is actually trying to find out is which names are still blank. Anyone can change their answer later, because somebody who said they were safe an hour ago may not be now.
Survival battery mode, in the next update. One tap turns ORBII down to the bone: no location history, no background work, nothing that exists to help you look back at a day rather than get through one.
It never touches Voice SOS or the mesh. A power saving that killed the mesh would be saving battery by removing the reason to have any, so those two are the last things sacrificed rather than the first.
What we will not pretend
If your phone is off, nothing works. Not ORBII, not any app. Anyone telling you otherwise is selling you something.
No app reaches rescuers faster than the official helplines. 112 and 1078 exist and are staffed. ORBII is for telling the people who love you that you are alive, and for being found by someone nearby. It is not a replacement for the disaster response system.
Disaster mode is free. It always will be. We charge for unlimited verified responder dispatch, and we are never going to put a subscription screen in front of somebody trying to tell their mother they survived.
The five minute version
- Text, do not call. Texts get through when calls do not.
- Tell one person, and ask them to pass it on.
- Aeroplane mode between attempts. It is the biggest battery saving there is.
- Screen to minimum, close everything, stop scrolling.
- 112 works even with no service, on any operator’s network.
Save the helpline numbers somewhere that does not need the internet. A photo in your gallery, or written on paper.
See how the rest of ORBII works, or read how the offline SOS is built.
Frequently asked questions
Why does the internet stop working during a flood or earthquake?
Three separate things fail. Towers lose mains power and run down their backup batteries within hours. Some towers are physically damaged or submerged. And the towers still standing get overwhelmed, because everybody in the area is calling at once. Data is usually the first thing to go and the last to come back.
Does SMS work when mobile internet does not?
Often, yes. A text message needs a tiny amount of bandwidth and can wait in a queue on the network until there is room, so texts frequently get through when calls fail and data is dead. If you have signal but nothing is loading, send a text rather than trying to call.
How do I make my phone battery last during a disaster?
Turn on aeroplane mode when you are not actively trying to reach someone, because searching for a weak signal is the single biggest drain on a phone. Drop the screen to its lowest brightness. Close everything in the background. Do not stream or scroll. A phone at 40 percent used carefully lasts longer than a phone at 100 percent used normally.
Can any app work with no mobile network at all?
Some can, over Bluetooth. ORBII passes an alert from phone to phone directly, so a message can travel through several handsets until it reaches one that still has a connection, which then sends it on. It needs another phone with the app within Bluetooth range, so it works best where people are gathered.
Can I ask my whole family at once whether they are safe?
That is a roll call, and it is coming in ORBII's next update. One tap asks everyone in your circle, and the screen lists everybody with the people who have not answered at the top, because those are the names a family is actually trying to find out about. Anyone can change their answer later, since somebody safe an hour ago may not be now.
What is the first thing to do when a disaster starts?
Tell one person you are safe, not everyone. One message to one contact who can pass it on saves battery, saves network capacity, and gets the information further than ten separate messages. Then conserve your phone.