RE: Of interest

> Interesting yes but can any conclusions be drawn

I can make some observations.

"Mobile and fixed-line telephone networks were severely congested as
panicked Londoners called relatives in the city, but there were no initial
reports of more widespread communications damage."

a) It is consistently observed that disasters are correlated with heavy use
of the telephone (both wireless and landline) leading to congestion in those
networks.

"There was no noticeable variation in the volume of Internet traffic through
The London Internet Exchange (Linx), which manages peering points in London
for all major U.K. ISPs"

b) While flash crowds can appear at web sites, overall the Internet volume
in the local area seems to have been fairly normal.

Now, there is an expectation that much landline voice will move from
circuit-switched networks to VoIP transport over the public Internet.  Thus
one could postulate that emergencies will result in higher volume of VoIP in
the disaster area.  This brings to mind a couple of concerns.

c) What can be expected about call quality of any type of call traversing
the public Internet in the disaster area?

d) What does this imply for the Internet health in this local area given
that VoIP tends to use UDP which doesn't back off nicely in light of
congestion?  Yes, people are working in this area and I can see why.

Kimberly