Hi Chuck, Good points. Although I think the likelihood of a (successful) large scale attack on the Internet itself is quite small compared the myriad of natural disasters we have every year, it certainly it worth thinking about and planning for. At some point I think you're just back to HF and (for those serving well-funded agencies such as the Red Cross) satellite links, though -- it's certainly a good idea to make sure those are part of a comprehensive emcomm plan.
The military worries about these same sorts of problems... they launched their MEECN (minimum emergency essential communications network) plan back in the '60s, and it consists of an almost completely redundant set of all-wireless handsets, mobile radios, pagers, etc. They're still working on it today, hundreds of millions of dollars later! Of couse, they do have plenty of results to show for it -- I guess this really only makes the point that comprehensive emcomm plans are never finished, they're constantly evolving to meet the end-users' needs. (I'm suspect the original 196x MEECN plan didn't call for megabit+ satellite-based digital access, for instance!) ---Joel
