bill@baldric.eedsp.gatech.edu (06/10/91)
A lot of people depend upon the phone system for various reasons. For
many, access to the phone networks have become a veritable necessity.
But then again, if someone (anyone) depends upon one lone source for a
service (any service) and then expects that that source will never
ever fail or become backlogged, then the consumer of that service is
very trusting and naive indeed.
This brings to mind a theorem of some sort that I remember from some
an engineering class that I had in the past (anyone know the name for
this little nugget?); the more reliable and fail-safe a system is
believed to have become, the more devastating will be its failure. I
took this to mean that the more dependable something becomes, the more
people there will also be who believe that the 'thing' will NEVER fail
and those same people will trust 'it' implicitly and not arrange for
an alternate source; therefore, when the reliable system fails, it
will be quite devastating to many. I believe that this holds
especially true for the nation's and world's voice / data networks.
I believe that since they are inevitable, occasional telephone network
failures are not only unacceptable but also unavoidable. Any entity
or person who depends upon that network to supply uninterrupted, 24-
hour, year round service with no degradation or failure is surely
acting in a naive and irresponsible way. At least the St. Louis Fed
had the foresight to plan a contingency method of transacting their
usual affairs. Let's hope that our local emergency agencies such as
police, ambulance, and fire have the foresight to plan for the
inevitable failure of the usual means of communication. A failure not
necessarily based upon a natural disaster and for which there may be
no prior warning.
Bill Berbenich Georgia Tech Atlanta Georgia, 30332
uucp: ...!{backbones}!gatech!eedsp!bill Internet: bill@eedsp.gatech.edubill@baldric.eedsp.gatech.edu (06/11/91)
I just reread my recent posting to TELECOM Digest and realized that I
had misstated my thoughts by 180 degrees.
The first sentence in the third paragraph should read: "I believe that
since they are inevitable, occasional telephone network failures are
not only ACCEPTABLE [was unacceptable :-)] but unavoidable [over a
period of time]."
Sorry for the error. I'd guess many of you realized something was
wrong. It was just tough to figure just what in the world it was that
I was trying to say. It was tough for me!
Bill Berbenich Georgia Tech, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
uucp: ...!{backbones}!gatech!eedsp!bill Internet: bill@eedsp.gatech.edu