Just an iReport but, nonetheless, very interesting. Do YOU have an alternative means to communicate with your family or are you counting on a cellphone that won't work when TSHTF?

iReport — Happening Now: 9:00 p.m. EST.

This evening in S. Florida, as hundreds of thousands of commuters were traveling home from work, going to diner and picking their children up from school, they found their 3G communications’ network shut down.

People calling from their phones got a message saying to try their call later, and callers to those with phones got the same message.

It's unknown how many people have been affected, but the scope of the area unable to communicate encompasses a population base of just fewer than 5 million.

Some of the network has come back online; some of it has not as of 9:00 p.m. EST.

One explanation appears it might be because of a low profile visit by Vice-President Joe Biden which the Secret Service might have believed needed an area wide shut down of communications to protect. But what kind of threat could have caused that?

This has not been verified, but information pointing this direction has leaked and the timing couldn't be more curious.

What the Secret Service did do that is verified, is completely shut down I-95, Miami's busiest interstate, at 4:45 p.m., right at the peak of rush hour and just 10 minutes after the AT&T network shut down. This resulted in stopping tens of thousands of commuters in their tracks for hours causing record traffic back-ups not seen before by S. Florida residents, and they've seen plenty.

Widespread online complaints and blog entries were streaming in on Twitter, Facebook and Myspace. One individual noted that the complaints began first by those on the interstate near Biden, and as time past, spread out from that area in every direction, a very keen and curious observation.

AT&T, who owns and operates the network, said only that it was an "equipment failure", but did not elaborate anymore than this.

Not specifying the where, why, who or what may have been the cause to any news service who also are asking questions is an extremely unusual response. Considering the problem seems to be fixed for the most part, how does someone fix something, but not know what they fixed?

http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-347959