[83915] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Phone networks struggle in Hurricane Katrina's wake
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Michael Greb)
Wed Aug 31 00:19:22 2005
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 23:16:40 -0500
From: Michael Greb <michael@thegrebs.com>
To: Richard A Steenbergen <ras@e-gerbil.net>, nanog@merit.edu
In-Reply-To: <20050831011251.GN8847@overlord.e-gerbil.net>
Errors-To: owner-nanog@merit.edu
--mI5TpPl/qDRoXxBg
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
On Tue, Aug 30, 2005 at 09:12:51PM -0400, Richard A Steenbergen wrote:
>=20
> > >>"In this age of cheap commoditized consumer electronics and=20
> > >>advanced mobile technology, why can't all the people of a city make=
=20
> > >>contact during an emergency?
> > >
> > >Simple: it's too expensive.
> > >
> > >Keep this in mind when trading in your POTS service for VoIP service=
=20
> > >over the internet. Discounting the local loop which is often the=20
> > >same in both cases, POTS is extremely reliable while VoIP over the=20
> > >public internet, well, isn't. But apparently people that switch to=20
> > >VoIP don't mind the reduced likelihood of being able to make calls=20
> > >during the next large scale emergency.
> >=20
> > Yes! I agree 100%. The key words in that above statement were=20
> > "cheap commoditized." The reason satellite phones work in big=20
> > disaster areas (other than the fact that the entire infrastructure=20
> > in the affected area is comprised of a solar powered satellite and a=
=20
> > subscriber's hand set with a remote base station(s) somewhere else in=
=20
> > the world) is simple; not everyone and their cousin has one to use.
>=20
> Did I miss the memo announcing the Slashdot commentary section had been=
=20
> extended to the NANOG mailing list? It is one thing to expand on a story=
=20
> with useful insights, but this entire thread is just restating the obviou=
s=20
> for the sake of hearing your own voice (or the digital equivalent=20
> thereof). If I wanted to read the uninformed reactions of random people t=
o=20
> random news stories wondering why cell phone circuits fill up during=20
> natural disasters I would go to slashdot and click "Read More...". This=
=20
> stuff doesn't even come close to being NANOG worthy, let alone on-topic o=
r=20
> appropriate.
>=20
> Note: nothing personal to those being quoted.
Richard,
I couldn't agree with you more, I've been concidering unsubscribing from
the day I subscribed. The reaction to your post was even worse then the
messages themselves. Perhaps it is time to leave.
Michael
--mI5TpPl/qDRoXxBg
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc"
Content-Description: Digital signature
Content-Disposition: inline
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux)
iD8DBQFDFS8n0Qbp4bPZvesRAv41AJ9a7OnH2laVLv81vUIyyQT5SBxuKgCfZ7dO
+6o3o8Ts+uCKa516WIZv1cI=
=VpsT
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
--mI5TpPl/qDRoXxBg--
