[oclug] Disintermediate the telephone company

[Brad Barnett]

On Mon, 14 Jun 2004 18:05:35 -0400
Olaf Baumann <olaf.baumann at pobox.com> wrote:

> On Mon, 2004-06-14 at 12:27, Rod Giffin wrote:
> 
> <snip>
> > THe problem during a power failure is not that the cell phones can not
> > work, the problem during a power failure is the cell towers do not
> > work. That problem was evident during last year's power blackout. 
> > Cell phones were dead, land lines were not.  In areas (such as
> > Barrhaven) where the  I was under the impression that the cell phone
> > services were
> operational after the blackout (if memory serves).  The problem was that
> once the power went, everybody grabbed their cell phones to make
> arrangements/plans ("Hi Honey, I'm in gridlock, I won't be home for a
> while" and "Hey buddy, I bet'cha this is a terrorist plot").  The result
> is that the capacity of the cellular system was maxed and most people
> didn't get served.

I wasn't in the Ottawa region at the time, but another part of Ontario. 
This was a rural area, and the problem most definitely wasn't a lack of
service.  The towers did die.  However, most of them died after hours had
passed, and some even lasted until the next day.  Obviously a generator
was present on site.

If cell phone companies want to utilize our (the Canadian citizen's)
airwaves in order to make a profit, they should be legislated to provide
such stability.  It really isn't that expensive, over all.  Most sites
already have generators, so all that's required is an expansion of fuel
capacity.

> 
>   I don't believe that telephone systems are not designed to handle the
> situation where every subscriber goes off-hook simultaneously.  In the
> past, radio contests with big prizes tended to expose this[1].  The
> cellular market, I imagine, is even more thinly spread, and would be
> more suseptable to load.

Every subscriber is a bit much, but I've had many occasions over the years
where "lines are busy" or the classic double busy.  Often this happens to
me on Mother's Day, or Christmas. 


> -- 
> Olaf
> 
> 
> [1] I can't find any references on the web to this, does anyone remember
> this happening?  Maybe I've fallen prey to urban legends
> 
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