[oclug] Disintermediate the telephone company

[Matthew Wilcox]

On Mon, Jun 14, 2004 at 06:05:35PM -0400, Olaf Baumann wrote:
>   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.
> 
> [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

What typically will happen is the local exchange of the dialled number
will get overloaded.  Phone companies can deal with this -- you just have
to warn them first.  They can block 90% of calls at the local exchanges
and only let 10% through to your exchange for a contest situation.

-- 
"Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon 
the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those
conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse
to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince 
himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep 
he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception." -- Mark Twain