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Technology Stocks : The *NEW* Frank Coluccio Technology Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Ecclesine who wrote (11190)	9/2/2005 12:52:20 AM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Respond to of 46821

Hi Peter, One of the points made in the documentary "Anatomy of 9-11," which aired this evening on the Discovery Channel, was (and I paraphrase): "The lack of interoperability between inter-agency radios wasn't so much a technological problem as much as it was a cultural one. Even when uniformed officials and their grunts were standing side by side to one another they were not talking to one another, never mind communicating by radio. They weren't in disagreement with one another, they just weren't talking to one another." I say this not to diminish the fact that real technological issues existed, but to suggest that those technological issues were not the sole reasons for the failure by the uniformed services to communicate. I think that the cultural divides between the Bush Administration, FEMA, Homeland Security, the Armed Forces, the LA State Police and the NOPD were fairly evident today, where we had a perfect opportunity to witness a situation where any wireless systems that would otherwise be interoperable were virtually non-exsistent, to begin with. And again, this was largely due to power failures and fallen cellular/wireless towers. Still, our military people use the most advanced wireless systems ever developed by man every day of the week in Iraq, where all manner of electrical grids and communications routes have been devastated through the ravages of war and sabotage. It's not all technological, folks. It's cultural, too. The proper field gear exists to avert these calamaties. The questions remain, however, Who will devise the plan to include them for the next time? And, Who will set the plan in motion when it's time? As for the time to repair New Orleans? It'll be many years, if the West Streeet Central Office next to the WTC in Manhattan is any indication. It took several years for that one building and its systems and the underground routes feeding it to be brought back up to pre-strike capacity and speed. Heck, it took fully three months for my dinky little office in the South Street Seaport to have copper service restored, and all I needed done was a cross connection in a different central office to be establshed, since I was outside of the immediate strike zone by a couple of blocks. FAC

To: Peter Ecclesine who wrote (11190)	10/6/2005 9:26:43 PM
From: carranza2	Respond to of 46821

I marked your post for response since I live in NO and can offer some local knowledge. I get cable internet, TV, and telephone service from Cox, who is all but absent in NO in some neighborhoods, mine included. Cox has not even set forth a schedule for when my 'hood can expect service to be up again. I would expect service to be restored a lot quicker than that. I am relying on Verizons's EvDO service for net access, and it is mostly good. Not perfect as there are periods in the day when I get a lot of dropped connections. Speed is OK, certainly not as lightning quick as the premium Cox net I paid for which routinely gave me 5 mbps. Verizon's wireless broadband is about 400kbps to 700 kbps which I consider adequate but not great. And the deal is not bad. If you sign up for 2 years, the DO aircard is $100 and the monthly charge is $60. What they won't tell you unless you ask is that the termination fee is $175. My plan is to get rid of the Verizon service once Cox is back. An expensive way of doing things, but I really had no choice as I needed web access to keep my business going. Since I have no landlines thanks to Cox, I am totally dependent on Sprint PCS for cell service. It's been awful. However, I can understand and forgive since we really did have a calamity and the cell phone usage has been incredible. Most conversations which would be on landlines are taking place on mobiles, and no cellular network should be expected to perform flawlessly nder these conditions. However, it's been over a month, and the same problems which plagued us immediately after Katrina made her debut have not been even partially solved. It's becoming a bit much.