North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: Phone networks struggle in Hurricane Katrina's wake
> >>"In this age of cheap commoditized consumer electronics and > >>advanced mobile technology, why can't all the people of a city make > >>contact during an emergency? > > > >Simple: it's too expensive. > > > >Keep this in mind when trading in your POTS service for VoIP service > >over the internet. Discounting the local loop which is often the > >same in both cases, POTS is extremely reliable while VoIP over the > >public internet, well, isn't. But apparently people that switch to > >VoIP don't mind the reduced likelihood of being able to make calls > >during the next large scale emergency. > > Yes! I agree 100%. The key words in that above statement were > "cheap commoditized." The reason satellite phones work in big > disaster areas (other than the fact that the entire infrastructure > in the affected area is comprised of a solar powered satellite and a > subscriber's hand set with a remote base station(s) somewhere else in > the world) is simple; not everyone and their cousin has one to use. Did I miss the memo announcing the Slashdot commentary section had been extended to the NANOG mailing list? It is one thing to expand on a story with useful insights, but this entire thread is just restating the obvious for the sake of hearing your own voice (or the digital equivalent thereof). If I wanted to read the uninformed reactions of random people to random news stories wondering why cell phone circuits fill up during natural disasters I would go to slashdot and click "Read More...". This stuff doesn't even come close to being NANOG worthy, let alone on-topic or appropriate. Note: nothing personal to those being quoted. -- Richard A Steenbergen <[email protected]> http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras GPG Key ID: 0xF8B12CBC (7535 7F59 8204 ED1F CC1C 53AF 4C41 5ECA F8B1 2CBC)
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