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Thursday, January 31, 2008

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Internet Outages Point Up Potential Difficulties In The Cloud

The other day I posted about connectivity being one of, if not the key issue, to mobile computing. Certainly if you rely on the cloud you need to have access to that data. Recent connectivity outages point up those issues even more, and always make me think about a backup scenario. India and the Middle East are suffering from a cable break in the Mediterranean, that is forcing all sorts of work arounds, not just for Internet access but for a variety of communications that affect a range of businesses. Users are being asked to voluntarily cut back on media and music traffic to help the strapped system stay up.

I also just read that AT&T Edge service in the Midwest is down, affecting users from Chicago to Kansas City. While they hope to get it back online later today, the repairs may take until February 5^th according to some reports.

Out here in the boonies, we experience some intermittent problems with connectivity that can bring our small theatre to its knees when it occurs, and is making us take some serious looks at our plans for using the Internet to manage our two venue in two town operation.

How about you? What’s your backup plan if you loose connectivity?

Tags: mobile

Mobile

1/31/2008 11:29 AM MST

Internet Outages Point Up Potential Difficulties In The Cloud Comments [5] | Digg This | del.icio.us | Citations

Thursday, January 31, 2008 11:56:35 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

My Edge data service is out in Colorado Springs - phone works, but can't get email or browsing.

Rob

Thursday, January 31, 2008 1:05:51 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

A Very good question.

In the light of our decreasing reserves in fossil fuels and scenarios like the one portrayed in Die Hard 4.0 this poses some food for thought. When you look at a few gadget sites, there are many alternative options to using your electrical plug at home (solar, wind, kinetic). With the advent of bluetooth, and wireless devices e.g. is it possible to create a a hub and spoke construction in which an alternative non-satlelite (ground) based Internet can be created, connecting all devices of different individuals together?

Medic

Thursday, January 31, 2008 1:16:12 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

While at home:
1st choice: Cable
2nd choice: Sprint USB EVDO modem
3rd choice: Drive to the bowling alley and hop on their WiFi network
4th choice: Drive to Starbucks and use the T-Mobile Hotspot access I received from donating an OLPC.
5th choice: Swap SIM card from iPhone to Blackjack and tether.
6th choice: War driving?
Last: Find a modem and use a free dialup service.

I like to be mobile, so I rely on the Novatel U727 USB EVDO modem a lot. Also at times, my cable goes out and being able to connect right away with the modem has eased a lot of frustration.
Also, my team has started doing weekly meetings at diners. So plugging the U727 into the Cradlepoint EVDO router has been great for sharing a connection.

Rodfather

Thursday, January 31, 2008 5:43:55 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

I think its a valid question, but I think the point thats not made is that if your connection goes out, it doesn't matter (for most of us) if our data is in the cloud or not, as we (I) can't use it for what I need to use it for, normally changing it and sending it back out to people. If my connection is gone, so is my ability to disseminate that data. Most truly mobile people, probably those reading this article, have multiple ways of connection. If they all have failed, the least of my concerns is getting at my data, its probably figuring out who has attacked and how to defend the nation... well, thats probably a little anarchist of me, but still, as the above list of connection possibilities shows, if one don't work, go to the next. e.g. - I am normally streaming video or audio off one of the clueless neighbors without even WEP protecting their wireless.

luvmyumpc

Friday, February 01, 2008 4:46:59 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

Hm, now why do I have a UMPC with me...

Comments are closed.