nanog mailing list archives
Re: Phone networks struggle in Hurricane Katrina's wake
From: Jerry Pasker <info () n-connect net>
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 18:32:50 -0500
On 30-aug-2005, at 22:08, Fergie (Paul Ferguson) wrote:"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.
Why? Because they're too expensive!Cell phones have trained the public in to accepting lower levels of phone service. Low cost equals high market adaptation, and in most cases, lower QoS.
-Jerry
Current thread:
- Phone networks struggle in Hurricane Katrina's wake Fergie (Paul Ferguson) (Aug 30)
- Re: Phone networks struggle in Hurricane Katrina's wake jc dill (Aug 31)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- RE: Phone networks struggle in Hurricane Katrina's wake Peering (Aug 30)
- Re: Phone networks struggle in Hurricane Katrina's wake Fergie (Paul Ferguson) (Aug 30)
- Re: Phone networks struggle in Hurricane Katrina's wake Iljitsch van Beijnum (Aug 30)
- Re: Phone networks struggle in Hurricane Katrina's wake Jerry Pasker (Aug 30)
- Re: Phone networks struggle in Hurricane Katrina's wake Richard A Steenbergen (Aug 30)
- Re: Phone networks struggle in Hurricane Katrina's wake Michael Greb (Aug 30)
- Re: Phone networks struggle in Hurricane Katrina's wake Barry Shein (Aug 31)
- the right list to use for talking about nanog is nanog-futures Joe Abley (Aug 31)
- Re: the right list to use for talking about nanog is nanog-futures Randy Bush (Aug 31)
- Re: Phone networks struggle in Hurricane Katrina's wake Iljitsch van Beijnum (Aug 30)
- Replacing PSTN with VoIP wise? Was Re: Phone networks struggle in Hurricane Katrina's wake Mark Foster (Aug 30)
- Re: Replacing PSTN with VoIP wise? Was Re: Phone networks struggle in Hurricane Katrina's wake Mark Foster (Aug 31)
- Re: Replacing PSTN with VoIP wise? Was Re: Phone networks struggle in Hurricane Katrina's wake Iljitsch van Beijnum (Aug 31)
- TIA-942 Datacenter Standardization Chris Gilbert (Aug 31)