Joel: While I agree that the Internet backbone is very robust, I certainly wouldn't put a nearly 100% certification on that. Keep in mind that a failure of internet connectivity alone is now worthy of declaring a communications emergency and cause for Ecomm activation. The most likely scenario is a large scale attack on the network, which can happen and can have serious implications. It's also conceivable that this can happen at an opportune time to multply the effects of man-made or natural disasters. In other words, don't count on it for long-haul Ecom--use it, but have a backup plan.
Chuck - N8DNX -----Original Message----- From: jkoltner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, June 28, 2008 12:55 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [dstar_digital] Re: Limited access --- In [email protected], "Woodrick, Ed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > History has shown that the Internet is much more survivable than some hams think. Absolutely. The Internet has at least a thousand times more access points and wired linked than any amateur radio system does; I think it's a fairly safe statement that while the Internet has occasionally become slow due to huge virus infections or similar man-made maladies, at no time in the past decade has any large fraction of the Internet become completely unavailable for more than, say, hours at a time. In a diaster, you certainly have to assume that local Internet access is gone... but it's almost a 100% certainty that the Internet is doing just fine once you're outside the affected area, which is seldom more than some tens of miles away. Building an emcomm system that builds on this assumption (e.g., making sure you have mountain- top systems with backup power that have wireless links to another mountain-top system some tens of miles away) makes for a far more robust system than amateur radio alone could ever hope to have the funds to build, IMO. ---Joel
