We've had quite a week of it here in the Northeast starting with a 5.8 magnitude earthquake that hit last Tuesday, followed by the arrival of tropical storm Irene Sunday morning, and now those of us who are heading out to clean up (I live on the South Shore of Long Island and was part of the "greeting committee" for Irene) are finding what the effect of lots of standing water followed by days of sunshine will be on the mosquito population. My family came out unscathed, but there was a foot of water in the street in front of my house, something I had not seen in the 25-years we've lived here--we actually moved in a week after Hurricane Gloria struck in November 1985.
My interest in all of this is what we learned about our communications networks, both wired and wireless as well as broadcast. The picture is mixed, but it does hold some lessons for the future.
The Earthquake: We don't get many earthquakes in our part of the country, and when we do get one, most people won't even feel it. However, a 5.8 gives you a good shaking, and the phone lines lit up. The cellular network in our suburban town flooded immediately, so I can't imagine what it was like in Manhattan. A few minutes after the quake, I found I couldn't get out on my cable phone line, though the Verizon line worked fine. In any case there was no apparent damage to the systems, so it was a temporary problem of congestion. The big discovery was that wireless SMS and BlackBerry Messenger (which work on cellular signaling channels and cellular data service respectively) chugged along just fine.
The Storm: There was plenty of advance warning with the storm (though the actual track was a matter of conjecture until the trees starting blowing down), and plenty of time for preparation. New York's Mayor Bloomberg took the unprecedented step of closing the city's public transportation system including the buses and all-important subways as well as the commuter rail lines in and out of the city. There have been some complaints that the city over-reacted, however while the worst-case scenario didn't play out, the long-term damage to equipment that could have occurred probably justified the extra caution.
The other extreme measure was ordering the evacuation of low-lying coastal areas including mine; we were actually upstate for a wedding when the storm hit, but in any event, most of my neighbors stayed put.
Both cellular and wired networks performed quite well throughout (we were calling all of our friends to see what was going on back home), and with the exception of the expected damage to overhead wires and water problems with underground equipment, things seemed to hum right along. Unlike the earthquake, which occasioned an immediate spike in calling, the storm business played out over Friday, Saturday, and Sunday so there was plenty of time for everyone to talk.
Lessons Going Forward
What had me thinking about the role of networks through all of this is a report I'd read from the Federal Communications Commission's Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) dated June 29 of this year. The basic recommendation is that the agency begin planning for the end of the PSTN and the migration to all broadband VoIP services with a target date is 2018. The fundamental problem they identify is, "As the number of subscribers on the PSTN falls, the cost per remaining customer increases and the overall burden of maintaining the PSTN becomes untenable."
Among the findings supporting this move are:
* By 2014, the United States will have fewer than 42 million access lines
* Access line losses were nearly 6.6 million between 2Q09 and 2Q10, a drop of 7.3%.
* By 2014 US consumers will have 31.6 million VoIP lines, accounting for 42.5% of all U.S. access lines.
* Fixed lines continue to decline; mobile is the preferred choice for voice communication.
* More than 25% of U.S. consumers aged 18 or older have already given up their voice landline for voice wirelessonly service.
Some of those findings are a little hard to fathom. The CIA's World Factbook puts the total number of wired telephone lines in the US at 141 million; do they really think that can drop by 100 million lines (70%) in three years? The National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) claims the cable companies have 24.4 million cable phone lines in service, so "31.6 million VoIP lines" by 2014 is quite realistic. The move to mobile is clearly evident as there are currently 303 million mobile lines in service.
Gary Audin took an extended look at the issues involved in ending the PSTN in a lengthy article last year. Gary's piece was triggered by a comment submitted to the FCC by AT&T looking to "sunset" the PSTN and transition to broadband (read "VoIP-based") telephony.
The critical need for communications in times of civil emergencies is one of the issues that always comes up. Anything that runs on wires faces the same hazards, but the PSTN's centralized powering structure and 100% battery and generator back-up generally means that if the wire's there, you can make a call. The TAC's report does identify that and other issues like the requirement to support modems and fax machines as well as the need to accurately convey DTMF signals for IVRs and voicemail systems as key requirements before retiring the PSTN altogether.
Cell phones are seen as an option, but battery-powered devices are still a concern when the lights go out; very few people have back-up batteries for their cell phones. However, what we have found is that as long as you have a charge, cell phones can provide multiple redundant communications modes including voice, SMS, and data services that can link you to BBM (and soon iMessenge from Apple), and social network sites. Fortunately, cell towers are pretty resilient structures, though the limited battery back-up capability is a concern if there is an extended power outage; the cellular carriers do have roll-out generators, but they typically don't have one for every tower. Further, many of those tower sites are shared by multiple operators, so why should we have three or four generators humming away at the same location?
The Embarrassment- Broadcast TV
My most lasting image of the storm was the frenetic, idiotic, and self-serving coverage provided by the broadcast TV networks. The only meaningful piece of information would be the storm track, which turned out to be unpredictable until it hit. To fill up the hours of airtime assigned to the story (essentially 24x7) what we had was a bunch pretty boys and girls, fanning overblown fears in a blatant attempt to improve their ratings. As the hours dragged on, the pretty boys and girls continued to crank up the hyperbole machine until Irene would have had to leave New York looking like Hiroshima, to live up to its advanced billing!
After the storm, when we really needed to know what bridges and roads were closed, they switched to scenes of guys in wife-beaters and hip-waders pumping out their basements. In short, the TV stations did nothing but treat the entire event as some sort of brainless reality show, which probably makes sense because that's where they make their money today. I really can't see any compelling reason why the government should continue giving these clowns free radio spectrum to perpetuate this type of circus.
In the meantime, our old reliable local news radio station, WCBS 880, continued to provide measured, accurate and complete information throughout the entire event.
Conclusion
Thank goodness that we don’t have to handle these sorts of situations on a regular basis, but they do give us the opportunity to appreciate the critical role of communications in the event of civil emergencies. We also get to observe and learn what works, what doesn't, and to appreciate the role of new communications media in making our overall communications capabilities stronger and more resilient.
The biggest lessons from this however should be 1) communications networks truly are critical in these emergencies, 2) people have adopted the new options and will include them in their list of options in difficult times, and 3) the public broadcast media needs to be soundly scolded so that next time, they overcome the urge to sensationalize for ratings purposes and understand their real responsibility is to provide the public with clear, accurate, and useful information.
