Telepocalypse

Sad but true

I have to echo Jeff Pulver's comments about emergency response, in the light of today's mass murders in London, near where I grew up. [I'm up late, ignore the post dateline.]

When you can't get hold of your friends and family, it's seriously not funny -- apologies for my resorting to British understatement. The legacy smart network is incapable of degrading gracefully under load. You can't readily descend from wideband audio to narrowband, to push to talk, to IM and then down to store-and-forward email. The possibilities of IP in emergency service have gone from being an intellectual curiosity to a matter of real urgency.

Oh, and anyone who thinks the British will be their ideological slaves under threat of violence hasn't read their history books very thoroughly. Too many of our ancestors have crawled out of lice-filled trenches to emerge into freedom for you to stand any hope of victory.

If I was down in London tomorrow I'd be buying a travelcard and spending my day occupying tube trains and buses to enjoy the ride.