[LINK] No cash for phone alert system

Jan Whitaker jwhit at melbpc.org.au
Mon Feb 16 23:11:12 AEDT 2009


At 10:45 PM 16/02/2009, Ivan Trundle wrote:
>Perhaps I'm missing the point in all this, but my (limited) experience
>of disasters shows that the very first network to go under is the
>mobile phone network. Simply being in range of a tower is all very
>well, but that assumes that the towers exist and are operating.

Yes you're missing the point that the alerts need to reach everyone 
well in advance of the fire being within many kms of the property. 
That's what didn't happen. 'Early' is a relative term and is 
insufficient for the types of fires that happened on that Saturday. 
And no one realised it. If the tower is down, it's too late to leave. 
But I was told that the mobile network was still working in the 
Labertouche fires.

Canberra had a different experience. You and BRD will know better 
about that one.

Landlines are possibly going to go out first to some homes depending 
on where the phone cable is. If it's on poles, forget it if they lead 
through the fire zone. At least mobile radio towers have a bit better 
chance, no? Some radio bands may be better, so maybe that is the type 
of connection that is needed to get to individual homes. Maybe some 
of that recovered bandwidth when the analog tv gives up could be used 
for emergency radio services in the bush. I seem to recall such a 
thing in the US that did interrupt all broadcast tv. Specialty radios 
might be worth it for broadcast. ABC is one thing, but it wasn't 
nearly granular enough. There needs to be evacuation directions, as 
in what roads are still safe to use. Otherwise people could be 
driving straight into the fire or one nearby.

Jan



Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
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