Telecom Collapse?

Fri Dec 5 14:21:53 UTC 2008

On Dec 5, 2008, at 9:01 AM, David Cantrell wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 04, 2008 at 11:08:49AM -0600, Jack Bates wrote:
>
>> 911 services are heavily used when a geographical area has an  
>> emergency,
>> and that emergency usually includes not having power.
>
> Yes, and it usually involves several thousand people all phoning to
> report the same damned thing, clogging up the emergency service's  
> lines
> so that *other* emergencies (like, say, someone having a heart attack)
> don't get dealt with.
>
>> Unless you live in a natural disaster prone location.
>
> So don't do that.  It's really rather silly.
>
> I've always thought that people who choose to live on flood plains  
> or on
> the side of active volcanos etc are at least a little bit crazy.  Of
> course, if they're so poor that they don't have any choice  
> (Bangladesh,
> perhaps) then they can't afford the non-existent POTS infrastructure
> anyway - but someone in the village might have a mobile.

There is literarily no place on the planet that is safe from natural  
disaster.
It's just that the recurrence times differ, and can be rather long in  
places, giving
an illusion of safety. For example, for the recent tsunami in
Indonesia, India and Sri Lanka, the recurrence time is estimated to be  
~1000 years.
Most people would think that they do not have to worry about a once  
per 1000 year
danger, until the water starts entering the second story.

Regards
Marshall

>
>
>>                                                       Or if your
>> grandmother's alert bracelet requires a phone line for notification.
>
> That's no reason for almost anyone to have a POTS line, because almost
> everyone doesn't live with their grandmother, and almost all
> grandmothers don't have alert bracelets.
>
> -- 
> David Cantrell | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david
>
> comparative and superlative explained:
>
> <Huhn> worse, worser, worsest, worsted, wasted
>