[83853] in North American Network Operators' Group
RE: Katrina could inundate New Orleans
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steve Gibbard)
Mon Aug 29 03:12:09 2005
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2005 00:10:54 -0700 (PDT)
From: Steve Gibbard <scg@gibbard.org>
To: Dave Stewart <dbs@dbscom.com>
Cc: nanog@merit.edu
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050829001913.021413f0@gold.dbscom.com>
Errors-To: owner-nanog@merit.edu
On Mon, 29 Aug 2005, Dave Stewart wrote:
> Y'know... I do have to wonder whether Internet access is nearly as important
> as power and communications (traditional comms, such as the PTSN).
>
> Granted, it'll be interesting to see how things shake out - but I just can't
> buy that getting the Internet working should/will be a really high priority.
A few years ago, we still had a model in which the Internet was layered on
top of the traditional telecommunications network, and anything really
important happened over voice calls, or at least over non-IP circuits of
various kinds. Now, the two are becoming sufficiently intertwined that
it's sometimes hard to know which you're using, and the days of being able
to say the Internet isn't important in an emergency are probably coming to
an end.
Granted, in a major disaster, the important thing is to keep people safe.
When there's massive danger to human life, preserving infrastructure of
any sort is not in and of itself a primary goal. However, we do want
people to be able to get weather data in order to keep themselves safe, we
do want people to be able to call for help, and we want rescuers to be
able to coordinate their efforts. That means we need working
telecommunications networks, whether it's IP to get to weather
websites, TDM or VOIP trunks within the telco, or VOIP services to offices
or homes. Yes, this all requires power. Hopefully, equipment that's
necessary for emergency communications is on generators or batteries.
I don't know much (if anything) about infrastructure in New Orleans. I
suspect it's one of those places where IP packets go to Dallas, Miami, or
Ashburn to get across town, and I suspect most of the VOIP providers that
claim to serve it don't have local infrastructure, so keeping long
distance circuits there working would be pretty important. Then there's
local infrastructure. We can hope the buildings with routers and telco
gear in them are designed for this, although some of them probably aren't,
and some that are probably won't work as planned. Outside, cables that
are up in the air may get blown over, while cables that are underground
may flood. And, even for stuff that doesn't get flooded or blown over,
there's likely to be equipment getting fried and needing to be replaced
due to power surges.
And then, as others have pointed out, there's the question of whether
other places are dependent on infrastructure in New Orleans. It's not a
place I've ever seen prominently figure on any ISP's nation-wide network
maps. But, there are plenty of those I haven't seen, and I don't know
about the underlying infrastructure in the area. Do circuits from Houston
to Florida pass through New Orleans? Hopefully, anybody relying too
heavily on circuits that pass through the area has adequate capacity on
backup paths that go elsewhere.
-Steve
