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Ameren's Mobile Power Outage Site

I think this is a mobile first.  Ameren, an electric power utility serving 1.9 million customers in Illinois and Missouri has launched a mobile website whose primary feature is a listing of all service outages.  You can search for affected areas by zip code or county.  The site also lets you report if your power is out and get real time updates on the progress of restoring power to your specific home or business.  The site also has customer service  phone numbers (unfortunately NOT click to call) and electrical safety tips. 

Nice idea, assuming the mobile site really is updated with status changes in a timely fashion. If the power is out then your desktop PC and WiFi access point and in some cases land-line phone service is going to be out too. Using the mobile site to report a problem or get a status update should be faster than holding for an overloaded telephone support center.  I think all public utilities including power, cable and land line phone companies should have a mobile site for outage reporting and status updates. 

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