Fiber cut in SF area

Sat Apr 11 23:25:26 UTC 2009

Anyone know how banks in the Bay Area did through this? I wonder how many
banks went dark and whether they had any backup plans/connectivity. Me
thinks its doubtful.

I also wonder if the bigger pharmacies such as Longs, Walgreens, Rite-Aid,
Etc had thought about these kinds of issues? I personally doubt it. I bet
you they went dark along with everyone else. Unfortunate.

The funny thing is that the California lottery would be somewhat immuned to
this kind of disaster as they actually use Hughes VSAT at every single
retailer.

Sorry for the random thoughts...

-Mike

On Sat, Apr 11, 2009 at 4:11 PM, Sean Donelan <sean at donelan.com> wrote:

> On Sat, 11 Apr 2009, Roger Marquis wrote:
>
>> The real problem is route redundancy.  This is what the original contract
>> from DARPA to BBM, to create the Internet, was about!  "The net" was
>> created to enable communications bttn point A and point B in this exact
>> scenario.
>>
>
> Uh, not exactly.  There was diversity in this case, but there was also N+1
> breaks.  Outside of a few counties in the Bay Area, the rest of the
> country's telecommunication system was unaffected.  So in that sense the
> system worked as designed.
>
> Read the original DARPA papers, they were not about making sure grandma
> could still make a phone call.
>
>
>  For a good "man in the street" perspective of how the outage effected
>> things like a pharmacy's ability to fill subscriptions and a university
>> computer's ability to boot check out a couple of shows broadcast on KUSP
>> (Santa Cruz Public Radio) this morning:
>>
>
> Why didn't the "man in the street" pharmacy have its own backup plans?
>
> Why didn't the pharmacy also have a COMCAST or RCN broadband connection for
> alternative Internet access besides AT&T or Verizon, a Citizens Band radio
> channel 9 for alternative emergency communications besides 9-1-1,
> a satellite phone for alternative communications besides local cell phones,
> and a Hughes VSAT dish for yet even more diversity?  Why was the pharmacy
> relying on a single provider?  Or do it the old-fashion way before computers
> and telecommunications; keep a backup paper file of their records so they
> could continue to fill prescriptions?
>
> Why didn't the pharmacy have more self-diversity? Probably the usual
> reason, more diversity costs more.  That may be the reason why hospitals
> have more diversity than neighborhood pharmacies; and emergency rooms have
> other ways to get medicine.  Maintaining diversity and backups is probably
> also part of the reason why filling a prescription at a hospital is much
> more expensive than filling a prescription at your neighborhood pharmacy.
>
> Likewise, why didn't grandma have her own pharmacy backup plan. Don't wait
> until the last minute to refill a critical presciption, have backup copies
> of prescriptions with her doctor, have an account with an alternative
> pharmacist in case her primary pharmacist isn't reachable, etc.
>
> Readiness works better if everyone does their part, including grandma.
>
> Next time it won't be AT&T, it will be Cox or Comcast or Qwest or Level 3
> or Global Crossing or .... or .... or .... .  It won't be vandalism, it will
> be an earthquake, backhoe, gas main explosion, operator error, ....
>
> Everything fails sometimes.  What's your plan?
>
> http://www.ready.gov/
>
> personal opinion only
>
>