aemeijers wrote:
The Daring Dufas wrote:
LouB wrote:
wrote:
LouB wrote:
Yabut a cell phone system can be easily overloaded in a big emergency.
If you can't get through, emergency services isn't going to have
anyone to send to help you anyway. Best to wait until things calm down
if you can. If you can't, put your head between your legs and kiss
your ass goodbye...
Not necessarily so. Cell circuits get overload with a zillion "are
you OK" or "I am OK" calls having nothing to do with NEEDING help.
Regular circuits do also.
Lou
A little programming could block 90% of trivial
calls allowing only 911 calls to go through. It
could be an interesting twist to giving more
control of the network over to FEMA for emergencies.
I know that at one time, the national phone system
could be basically taken over by the federal
government during The Cold War. If I'm not mistaken,
the feds have their own separate network now. All
that extra fiber that was run during The Internet
boom and bust hasn't gone to waste.
TDD
There is a class of cell service that basically echoes the old 'flash
priority' on AUTOVON in the old days. It bumps civilian cell calls. As
to the wireline federal networks, they are mostly virtual networks at
this point, riding leased lines or the public switched lines. Try
dialing 10-10-FTS sometime. Yeah, the line between ATT Long Lines and
the Fed was rather fuzzy in the old days. Not so much anymore, but the
fed phone network is still basically a Bellcore creation.
--
aem sends...
From what I've read about the Cold War era AUTOVON
system is that it ceased to be used in the 1990's
replaced by DSN. I'm sure the feds have their own
pathways through the national network but there's
some really bizarre proprietary stuff me and thee
will never see that they use for secure communication.
I spent some time at a US Missile Defense Command
facility 20 years ago and there was a lot of secure
microwave, satellite and fiber optic communication
equipment there. Now, there's no telling what they
are using but it certainly takes up less space.
TDD