[LINK] comms fails during Black Saturday

[Roger Clarke]

At 14:09 +1100 27/3/09, Jan Whitaker wrote:
>Mobile networks 'failed on Black Saturday'
>http://www.theage.com.au/national/mobile-networks-failed-on-black-saturday-20090327-9djj.html 
>
...
>Most other properties on Doctors Creek Road, where he lives, were destroyed.
>Four people perished in the fires around Wandong and 147 houses were
>lost. The royal commission had initially overlooked it on its list of
>community consultations but added it to the 12 other fire-affected
>communities after protests.

Mistakes like that give you some idea of the scale of the event.

('Oops, missed that on the list, because it was small beer in the 
scheme of things.  Sorry, we'll add you!').


On the subject of the lack of mobile coverage, ...

I was at the Retirement Village that my father's in.  It's 2km 
outside Camden, which these days is the first town outside the Sydney 
conurbation in the SW direction, 70km by road, 50km as the crow 
flies.  The population's about 50,000, in an LGA that's maybe 8km N-S 
and 11km E-W.

The Village is on a hill, and doesn't have line-of-sight to Camden. 
The location is the squiggley roads immediately east of the word 
'Grasmere' on this map:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Grasmere+NSW&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=61.452931,54.052734&ie=UTF8&ll=-34.054064,150.669637&spn=0.127859,0.105572&z=13

They've built a new block (which we were looking at), with 75 
low-care and 30 high-care beds.  The early days of the construction 
can be seen using Google StreetView for address 88 Werombi Rd, 
Grasmere NSW.

The new block, to the Ops Manager's considerable disappointment, 
doesn't have mobile-phone coverage, or at least not the carrier he 
uses.  He looked surprised when he couldn't get a signal, so I can 
only assume that he uses it on the rest of the property.


-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/

Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
                    Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au                http://www.xamax.com.au/

Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng  Australian National University
Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program      University of Hong Kong
Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre      Uni of NSW