On 1/17/07, Michael ODonnell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
the 911 concerns are not about *if* calls can go through, but
> whether calls will *always* go through, and properly
It probably doesn't pay to be too arch about it - even the conventional land lines can have their problems. One icy night in southern Chelmsford approx 10 yrs ago my wife spun out in her car, which was crippled after she hit a curb. When she tried to contact the cops from a nearby house by dialing 911, she could at first get only busy signals and then on all subsequent attempts it just rang with no answer... :-/
Wow. That's actually a pretty serious failure. The E911 system has some fairly sophisticated functionality, up to and including seizing trunk lines to make the calls go through (i.e., your call to Aunt Marge gets dropped if someone dials 911 and the trunk is busy). They also have, or at least used to have, multi-party 24/7 technical staff on-site at the central call handling centers. To say nothing of the redundancies in conventional POTS design (which really is, in general, some of the most robust engineering I've ever seen in the public sector). (Emphisis POTS here -- anything more than -48 VDC talk battery and the whole story changes.) Redundant in-building power wiring, redundant battery banks, generator backup for the batteries, dedicated line for each and every subscriber (pair gain not withstanding), no electronics anywhere for outside plant, auto failover for trunk routing, etc. The infrastructure I've seen in most Internet provider systems can't hold a candle to it. Obviously, any system can still fail, but for the most part, *none* of this exists for Internet service -- especially home Internet service. Note well that there's a huge difference between the technical engineering and the customer service that controls it. For the Big Bells, the two are just about inversely proportional in their quality. -- Ben _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
