Disaster-proof nets? Not without epic spending...
Loring Wirbel writes in EE Times:
Many foolish comments are heard in Katrina's wake regarding the inability of electrical and telecommunications networks to be restored within days or weeks — a particularly silly observation in a city where all traces of a viable infrastructure have been wiped out. It's one thing to hope that the Federal Emergency Management Agency or the U.S. Northern Command can provide better satellite-based communication or ad hoc mesh networks to regional emergency crews. It's another to anticipate a level of business or residential service restoration no one is willing to pay for.
As of late last week, energy utilities and facilities-based communication carriers still had no idea which switching centers, power distribution centers, transformers and remote terminals were destroyed, because they could not get into neighborhoods, and remotely managed network-management software depends on a working electricity network.
In the case of New Orleans, many submerged neighborhoods may not be pumped free of water for weeks or months, making restoration of services impossible. This is why there is no date for the return of New Orleans citizens: Even tentative timelines for the partial return of essential services cannot be given.
So is there a consensus for a new national survivable communication/energy network? Don't bet on it. We don't even agree on what survivability is.
posted by Fergie @ 9/05/2005 10:46:00 AM
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