[Username00089]

Regarding the blog on CB from yesterday. If you haven't read it yet, here it is
http://crackberry.com/emergency-why-...a-better-voice

This was nearly nine years. Blackberries were obviously prevelant in the buisness world, but not so much with the consumer market.
In the article he points out that they weren't equipped as phones just yet.

I understand that the data relied on RIM's own servers just as they do now
for cellular phone Blackberries. But again, this was 9 years ago so my question
is this:

Who's to say that in a time of crisis again, with so many people relying on
data usage than ever before, why wouldn't the servers just be overloaded and
basically be reduced to what voice is? I'm speaking in the terms of NOW. Not
then. I remember last May here in Los Angeles when there was a small
earthquake on a Sunday night I had a lot of trouble using my data. BBM's
weren't going through and took forever to go through after about 10 minutes
or so. What if there's a catastrophe? You're telling me that data can still be reliant?

[oasissux]

I think the idea behind the article is that users should use data instead of voice in emergency situations because it's more efficient.

[berryfit]

I believe its more efficient and wont clog lines....uses less bandwidth overall.

Also, during the blackout in the north east six years ago or so, you couldn't place a call, but I could text and it worked for back and forth messages...until the phone died...and I had no car charger.

[Reed McLay]

if you find yourself in an emergency situation, try and use data (email, BBM, PIN), instead of a voice call to communicate. Not only will it allow you to communicate, but it will allow more people to communicate at once.

why wouldn't the servers just be overloaded and
basically be reduced to what voice is? I'm speaking in the terms of NOW. Not
then. ...

If I understand the issues correctly, it is not a matter of the Research in Motion Network Operations Center being overwhelmed. The issue is the available bandwidth in the areas subject to emergency conditions.

Voice calls were the issue in '01, the local area cellular service is designed to accommodate normal and peak traffic, not the volume of traffic generated on that day. It was saturated to the point of failure.

If a similar emergency were to occur now, nothing would have changed. Voice calls would fail but data would continue to flow as normal.

Today, the situation is complicated by the presence of high bandwidth devices manufactured by the other guys. Those device would compete for the available data bandwidth, slowing down the average response times.

We have seen similar situations on Christmas Day. Several million new Smartphones coming on line at the same time dramatically impacted voice calls, but the impact on data was trivial.

The data will still go through, as long as the cellular network is reasonably intact and has power.

[Username00089]

If I understand the issues correctly, it is not a matter of the Research in Motion Network Operations Center being overwhelmed. The issue is the available bandwidth in the areas subject to emergency conditions.

If there was ever something like 9/11 to happen again, and forbid it doesn't,
I'm pretty sure bandwith would be overwhelmed. What I'm saying is, the more
Blackberry users there are now, it would be conceivable that RIM's servers
would be severely strained, right?

Everyone please remember, I'm equating this to a real catastrophe like 9/11.
When there are earthquakes here in Southern Cal there are bandwith issues.
But the whole country isn't on the phone texting/data'ng. So I'm sure if
something happened that caused the whole country to be in panic mode,
the blog that was put up and the arguments would be thrown out the window.

[Reed McLay]

Research in Motion does not say very much in public about the operations center, other then regular maintenance shutdowns to add in additional resources.

Currently, the resources are in place to manage some 40+ Million subscribers and that is growing at the rate of roughly 4 Million net new subscribers per quarter.

Unfortunalty, we do know all of those resources are in one geographic area, Waterloo Ontario. What would happen if a natural disaster should occur there?

Fortunatly, that area is geologically stable and well supplied with Hydro electric power generated at multiple locations in Canada and the American grid.



Ice Storm of 1998.

Unfortunaly, that area is subject to catastrophic Winter Ice Storms. Transmission towers lay crumpled and broken while vast areas of the country are left without power or communications.

IMHO: It would make a lot of sense for Research in Motion to build another NOC for load sharing and redundancy. Australia comes to mind, they share the same English Common Law for business purposes and are geographly remote to insure no survivable disaster can impact both at the same time.