The Government Didn't Shut Down Cell Service in Boston. But With SOP 303, It Could Have.

Shortly after the horrific explosions that interrupted the Boston Marathon, the Associated Press reported that the government had shut down cellphone service in the area. That wasn't true—but it's not impossible.

"No one in Washington or in any statehouse or bunker anywhere can press a button and shut down phone service," explains Harold Feld, vice president at Public Knowledge, an advocacy group focused on communications and technology policy. But although there's no physical kill switch, there is Standard Operating Procedure 303, a secret agreement between telecommunications giants and the government that outlines "a shutdown and restoration process for use by commercial and private wireless networks during national crises," according to a government report on the subject. The government can shut down cellphone service—but it didn't do so in Boston. Because SOP 303, also known as the Emergency Wireless Protocols, is classified, the public doesn't know under which specific conditions a shutdown could occur. But in 2006, the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC), a group of major telecom company executives and government officials, issued a report that revealed some details about SOP 303. The committee's report explained that the National Coordinating Center for Telecommunications (NCC), an emergency telecom coordination body set up by President Ronald Reagan in 1984, would serve as a clearinghouse for requests to shut down wireless networks "within a localized area, such as a tunnel or bridge, and within an entire metropolitan area."