D-STAR works with or without Internet. The Internet enables gateways. During Katrina there was Internet connectivity available through a couple of ISP NOCs (even though the building was flooded). If Internet is available, it is better to have the radio capable of D- STAR, in a D-STAR active area, then to not have a D-STAR capable radio. Having just gone through a really tough weekend when a major Internet hosting facility went down in Seattle (our servers are in that data center), I know what its like to have your infrastructure go down, but I wouldn't want to make the decision not to host build something because a piece of infrastructure might go down.
Shoot, with that thinking I shouldn't bother having a car because bridges will probably go out during a major earthquake in my area. (Incidentally, it only takes a couple of inches of snow here to shut down the city, take out power, etc. -- I drive a 4WD Jeep with amateur radio and have the skill to get out when my neighbors are housebound due to slightly inclement weather.) Hams can improvise under conditions that would bring public safety radio folks to their knees. You put a hotspot somewhere that has Internet connectivity (these events rarely take out every possible avenue to the Internet) et voila you are back on the D-STAR network. On Jul 8, 2009, at 8:19 AM, john_ke5c wrote: > > > > Only you can really answer your question, but let me pose a > question for > > you to think about. What if you deployed to a major incident (like > > Katrina) in an area where D-STAR has been deployed heavily for > Emergency > > Communications, would you want your options for support limited by > not > > having D-STAR in your bag of tricks? > > What's the DStar network backup plan for major incidents like > Katrina when the internet (fiber, cable, microwave) lose power, get > flooded, etc.? What keeps the backbone going for your bag of tricks > to keep working? > > 73 -- John > > John Hays Amateur Radio: K7VE [email protected] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
