[AusNOG] GoodBye NBN

[Mark Delany]

On 09Sep13, Terry Sweetser (SkyMesh CTO) allegedly wrote:
> My checklist:
> 
> [1] battery back up on NBN UNIV: working fine, many hours of voice 
> available during a black-out;
> [2] FAX, TTY and ALARM dialers over NBN UNIV: working fine, FAX works 
> really nicely on T.38;
> [3] VoIP dialer on alarm panel via ethernet port: working fine, only 
> need internet to work, aok;
> [4] GSM dialer on alarm panel, plain old GPRS: working fine, no need to 
> have a landline to the alarm panel.

We geeks. Tsk tsk.

How about:

[1] Ask the person who lives with you. Works for 90% of the population
    even if they can't make a phone call.

[2] Call out to your neighbour "help". Works for 95% of the population.

[3] Have an emergency gas powered siren that you can activate in
    an emergency. Works where-ever another living sole is within 90
    decibel range. Works for 99% of the population and lasts 2 years
    without power.

[4] Sign up for the "we call you during an infrastructure outage to
    check that you're ok" program. Works for 100% of the population -
    even if they black out and can't make a phone call or press a
    button.

    Heck, who on this list doesn't prefer active monitoring to make
    sure their equipment is up? Er, I mean their favoured relative is
    still alive?

[5] Have your family on the SMS alert list that's notified during any
    service outage (cold and hot weather can kill a person quicker
    than lack of a phone line). Works for 100% of the population -
    even if they suffer from heat stroke and can't make a phone call.

[6a] Subsidize a roof mounted Spot Personal Tracker for the 0.01% of
     the population whose life really does solely depend on a copper
     phone line. Equip it with a Dead Man's Switch on a pendant for
     those critically isolated. Works for 100% of the
     population. Battery life in a power outage, 3 months.

[6b] Need to survive longer than a three month power outage? As above
     but use a 406Mhz ELT. Battery life in a power outage, 18 months.

Combined all six and you've got a system that costs about the same as
a copper phone line install + rental. And it's got multi-level
redundancy with active monitoring to boot.

Remember, the goal isn't to provide phone calls during power outages,
it's to reliably generate an alert during a life-threatening
situation. I for one would not pick a copper phone line as a first -
or only - choice for that requirement.

And yes, I degenerated into geek solutions pretty quickly too... So
sue Terry *and* me.


Mark.