North American Network Operators Group

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Re: Telecom Collapse?

  • From: Michael Thomas
  • Date: Thu Dec 04 14:18:51 2008

Joe Abley wrote:
This is straying far from network operations, but I think 911 generally engenders an unnecessary degree of hysteria. As I suggested before, the marketing of this fear from certain quarters has apparently been quiet effective.

The probability of any single individual needing to call 911 is already minute. The probably that all available cell and VoIP services also won't work precisely at the moment that a 911 call needs to be made is even smaller.

We haven't really had a major catastrophe where we've been totally dependent on IP yet, AFIAK. Maybe all of the qos, call gapping and the rest of the stuff the TDM networks do to deal with disasters will be left in the dustbin of Moore's Law, but maybe they won't. One thing is certain: we'll definitely find out one day, and it's not likely to be from a position of having taken the precautions, congratulating ourselves IMO.

Mike