Power glitches were not a problem for two of Bermuda?s cellular providers, but congestion certainly was a factor.

Cheryl Packwood, general manager of Cingular, said last night the company was able to maintain the network all day and provide Island-wide coverage.

Cellular One had problems with its service in the early hours but got its network up pretty fast, according to spokesman Coleman Easton.

?We had to rely on generators at first but as power came on we restored full service to customers and we did not lose that much service around the Island,? he said, adding that most customers had service by early morning.

Both companies, however, experienced problems with congestion in the morning hours. While Mr. Easton said Cellular One?s congestion came as a result of certain towers not being powered early on, Ms. Packwood said its congestion came about because so many customers were trying to call at once.

?The congestion was fairly bad in the morning when people were going to work and trying to figure out what was going on,? she said.

Cingular sent a blast text message to its customer base to inform them that they should use text messages instead of calls to help free up the network for emergency use. Radio advertisements also pleaded with callers to only use phones when necessary.

Messaging and less use of phones are really the only solutions to caller congestion in times of emergency, she said, adding that the only other alternative was to increase capacity, which ?would not make sense for normal everyday life?.

?You would have to really increase capacity in your network but these are one-off events that don?t happen everyday of the year,? she said.

?It is just like Belco not asking people to use their air-conditioning even though the power is coming back. Every different type of network in an emergency situation is going to experience congestion which is why you ask your customer not to make phone calls unless necessary in order to allow necessary and emergency calls to go through.?