Article Index
Disaster Preparedness to the Rescue
By Jesse CrydermanI was a Boy Scout as a young man, filled with adventurous dreams of mountain summits and extreme weather survival. I idolized Zane Grey, Sir Edmund Hillary, Hemingway, and Eric Ryback, the first person to hike the 2,663-mile Pacific Crest trail at the ripe age of 17. My personal wilderness feats weren't groundbreaking, but they did shape my development and hey, I survived. And while I have forgotten how to tie 25 different knots, and my memory of bird calls is spotty, I've never forgotten the Boy Scout motto which informed all of the merit badges and survivalism: Be Prepared.
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Deadliest OSS: Managing Subsea Networks in a Dangerous World
By Ed FinegoldAmid discussions of the global economy and ubiquitous access to communications, we take for granted that connecting the world's continents – excluding only Antarctica – are 69 millimeter diameter cables which rest on the ocean floor. Though multiple new cable projects are in progress, there are roughly 121 subsea communications cables in service today. Major outages, which are rare but generally caused by anything from ships dragging anchor in storms to seismic events, can take weeks to repair. How subsea cable operators deal with the risks and realities of operating their networks; planning redundancies to deal with outages and disasters; and executing maintenance operations sometimes thousands of meters below the sea takes us out of the back office – where OSS usually lives – and into some of the harshest and most dangerous areas of the planet.
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Lessons After The Quake: Japan's Remarkable Communications Recovery
By Tim YoungAs relief efforts continue in Japan, where earthquakes and tsunamis struck to devastating effect just a few short months ago, we are reminded about the importance of a great many luxuries and necessities that we often take for granted on a day to day basis.
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Finding Friends on Sept. 11
By Ed FinegoldIt’s been nearly ten years since I called my sister from the corner of 4th street and Broadway because the World Trade Center was on fire. I told her that I wasn’t going to work. I didn’t want her to worry in case she turned on the news and saw the same massive flames shooting out of the ironwork that I was witnessing first hand. I didn’t know what had happened. I heard mutterings around me; something about an airplane crashing into the building. I’d been on my way to the Subway; my office was at 90 West, directly across Liberty Street from the Twin Towers. Naively, I told my sister that I wouldn’t go to work until I knew the fire was out and instead would return to my apartment at 4th street and 1st avenue. I called my father as I walked home to tell him the same. That was the last mobile call I was able to make for the rest of the day. The only other phone call I was able to make at all was a page to a friend, now my wife, to let her know I was still alive. Years later, she still had not deleted the page.
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Text-to-Donate in the Post-Paid World
By Tim YoungIn the aftermath of any natural disaster, the first order of business for those fortunate enough to live beyond the affected area is to find a way to help. Sometimes helping means wielding a shovel or delivering clean water, but for most, helping means monetary donations.Given the increased speed and frequency of communication and the extent to which the desire for instant gratification has pervaded all aspects of life, it's only natural that relief agencies have begun to offer the option of making small donations via SMS shortcode. But facilitating charitable giving in a manner that is rife with conditions is a dangerous game.
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An Answer in the Stars: The Case for Satellite
By Jesse CrydermanI lived in rural Indiana in the 1980s, and the coolest family in town had a giant dish trained at the sky in their backyard that beamed all the movies we could watch into their living room television. Nevermind the fact that these neighbors had sacrificed their backyard to the swimming-pool-size sky eye—they had cable, something unheard of in our zip code. This was my first introduction to satellite technology.
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NewsWatch
By Jesse CrydermanGlobal Telecom Market Grows 4% Independent telecoms analyst Ovum released a report this month that reviewed the 2010 financial performance of global telecoms. The results look promising for those operating in the space—4 percent growth in revenue to hit $1.85 trillion. The most significant finding was a modest year-on-year capex rise in the fourth quarter, which represented the first such growth since 4Q 2008.
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Letter from the Editor
By Tim Young"There's no disaster that can't become a blessing, and no blessing that can't become a disaster." -Richard Bach
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