Designed to avert a total lack of emergency communications in the wake of another Katrina-like disaster, Jeff Pulver and
Tom Evslin have submitted a petition with the following suggestions (to the FCC):
We primarily ask for a
mechanism to ensure that individuals are reachable after a public crisis that causes communications networks to go
down. We propose a solution that we think could provide immediate relief before the next hurricane season and before
more elaborate rules might feasibly be established. We ask simply that the FCC require any provider obligated to
provide E911 services to establish an alternate communications service for affected customers via either: (1)
activating for each customer a voicemail service that would be accessed by incoming callers dialing the customer's
phone number, or (2) providing expedited local number porting to an alternate service provider selected by the
customer, including porting to a number outside of the geographic area and/or rate center. Either of these proposals
would provide a technically feasible and reasonable means of ensuring that consumers remain connected during
emergencies.
I really, really like these suggestions. The first one is just a common-sense suggestion.
But the second one has benefits beyond the scope of disaster preparednes. Faster number porting mean better
competition. Better competition means better uptime. Now Jeff has also said that he doesn't intend to pitch
IP-based infrastructure using Katrina as the impetus. I say "why not?"
Check out all
of Jeff's reasoning by clicking here.
1. It's strange that no one suggest it before.
Such technology used in military systems for a long time.
Posted at 10:53AM on Apr 29th 2006 by seo