Tragic Death Pushes Lawmakers To Improve New York Cell Service

When I moved from literal cow country Lancaster, Pennsylvania to New York over a decade ago, my mind was boggled by how I could have such great cell service in a pasture but in a college town, my calls dropped and I could never connect to data.

Get our free mobile app

A decade and a million calls to provers about service that is spotty, drops, or plain nonexistent, and cell service is still iffy in many areas, especially in rural areas.

New Yorkers who live, work, or travel through rural areas are often quite literally at the mercy of the wind whether or not they'll have cell service. I found myself needing to drive through one of the most sparsely populated areas of New York and as I clenched the steering wheel, I prayed the whole way through that nothing happened because I had absolutely no cell service for nearly two hours.

20-year-old Kaylin Gillis was traveling in a remote area of Upstate New York, in the Adirondacks, and was shot and killed after the vehicle she was riding in turned into the wrong driveway because there was no service to call and verify the address of the party she and her friends were going to.

The death of Gillis and the fact that the driver of the vehicle her boyfriend, had to drive several miles before being able to find cell phone service to call 911 has sparked discussion among lawmakers and advocates in New York who are trying to work together to find ways to better improve cell phone service in rural areas.

Hazel Crampton-Hays, a spokeswoman for Governor Kathy Hochul told the Times Union that Hochul "is committed to strengthening broadband and cellular service across the state. "

It is worth noting that the death of Gillis was not directly due to bad cell phone service although had service been better, the group of people traveling to the party may have been able to call someone and ask for better directions rather than wind up on a rural dirt road and directly in the line of fire.