[GreenKeys] Re Vulnerablity of today's comms systems

[Rokumon Cat]

Sorry for the double post, my bad.
 
Anyway, 
 
Maybe they have heard of EMP. I doubt that they understand it. Not many do, even in the radio field. I also have more than just a hunch that the bottom line of ATT has much more to do with their unfailing "standards" than reliability of their network. Such was not the case back in the days when our nation gave a darn about things such as this, before Ma Bell was raped by the anti-corporatists. 
 
I take it that you do not have to put up with the 'new' ATT service techs. Oh, I should say non-service. But that is not the point here. Unless ATT has put all of their superbly hardened solid state computerized wonders 50 feet underground (I doubt it) and unless they have true backup (not just 6 hours worth of batteries), and unless EVERY computer (ultra reliable of course) on their network is fully duplicated in seperate bunkers that has proper Faraday sheilding, then no, I don't believe it. I suspect that even the old cold war Long Lines Microwave system had more reliability than their superdeduper computerized excuse of a phone network. Save a direct hit with a nuke (and I mean direct), those microwave stations were truly hardened. By contrast, look at those cell towers that everyone hangs their safety and even lives upon. You know, the ones that will not work when Airforce one is in town. (And it doesn't mattter who owns the tower. They are all
 vulnerable.) The actual towers are probably the sturdiest thing about them, the (computerized, I might add) electronics are stuffed in little fiberglass huts that are delivered by dropping them off of a truck. Most do not even have backup generators. A good windstorm or (God forbid) an earthquake, and down come the cell towers, and then down goes the sanity of a nation addicted to TV on I-phones. (That part makes me snicker actually...) It would take more than a windstorm or earthquake to take out an old Long Lines microwave station. A whole lot more. So much more that the bean counters at ATT (or any other modern day teleco) would ever allow such things to be built today.
 
Yeah, the computerized networks might be able to be reconfigured by some computer geek from some office in where ever. But survivability is a whole lot more than reconfigurability. Give me 1960's cold war phone tech any day over this house of cards telecom system we have today.
 
Joe