Many times, cell site outages are due to power failures. Sometimes power can be restored quickly to the cell sites by providing gasoline-powered portable generators to the sites, carriers and rescue officials said. Flooding at the base of cell towers can cause circuit disruptions, or an antenna at the top of a tower could be blown out of alignment, requiring a relatively minor repair. Rarely are 120-foot-tall cell towers knocked completely over.

The FCC and the carriers do not track wireless outages by numbers of subscribers, since a cell phone's failed transmission to one tower could transmit to another working tower nearby.

Despite the increased outages reported Monday, the three largest wireless carriers -- Sprint, Verizon Wireless and AT&T-- issued statements Monday morning saying their crews were making repairs and that no significant network outages had been encountered after the storm moved into Canada.

The FCC confirmed that no major network switch was knocked out of service in the storm. On Sunday, the FCC reported all 9-1-1 centers as well as public safety officials had retained communications.

The FCC has been counting communications outages using mostly voluntary reports provided by the communications companies. The FCC took the action as a result of the widespread and prolonged that occurred following Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast six years ago.