Replacing PSTN with VoIP wise? Was Re: Phone networks struggle in Hurricane Katrina's wake

Thu Sep 1 09:58:38 UTC 2005

> But then, people don't really care about this, as cell is in the 
> exact same boat and huge numbers of people rely on just their cell 
> phone and no longer have a fixed line (in Europe at least).

I have read accounts that suggest that cellphone subscribers
from New Orleans only have one way service. In other words,
if you left New Orleans with your cellphone then you can
make outgoing calls but no-one can call you. I don't know
how widespread this is, but knowing that there has to 
be an SS7 switch in New Orleans directing those incoming
calls to your new location, I can imaging that loss of
such a switch would create problems.

A similar problem would be created if a web server relied
on DNS that was only hosted on servers in New Orleans.

--Michael Dillon