Wireless failures shows falicy of ham radio Emcomms going to the WWW

Two more good reasons why hams should not to become dependant on the Internet to carry emergency communications. This as the commercial wireless infrastructure that connects to the Internet proves twice in less than a month that its prone to failure.

The first event took place on January 31st. It involved AT&T service for customers with Web-enabled wireless devices across the Midwest and Southeast, which had no service most of that day. According to news reports, customers could make voice calls but experienced trouble getting e-mail or connecting to the Internet with their smart phones, PDA's or laptop computers. An AT&T spokesman said that the outage on the nation's largest telecommunications company's 3G and Edge networks began about 5:30 a.m. Central Standard Time and was repaired by mid afternoon.

And on Monday February 11th, Blackberry wireless device users suffered about a 6 hour outage. This as Research in Motion, the company that owns the rights to the Blackbery system, suffers its second service loss in less than a year.

The glitch that began about 3:30 Eastern Standard Time shut off e-mail and Internet access to more than 8 million subscribers on all wireless carriers in North America for three hours. In a statement issues on Tuesday, February 12th, the Research in Motion says that it is continuing to investigate the exact cause of the service outage and it will provide additional information as soon as it is able to verify the events that prompted the service loss.

No reason by either company for either outage taking place was given.

Unlike the wired infrastructure of the Internet, the current structure of ham radio emergency communications is decentralized and not wireline or commercial wireless dependant.

As seen countless time in the past, this independence from a centralized structure and the ability to use low current battery operated gear means that hams can continue to function as emergency communicators. This, even if a widespread disaster takes all of an areas electrical power, telephones, cellphones, wireless devices and all access to the World Wide Web.

Source: Amateur Radio Newsline