Net Soup: Frank Beacham
9/11: What Worked, What Didn't
Blackberry pagers worked. Cellphones didn't.
DSL worked. Telephones on the same line didn't.
E-mail worked. Internet news sites didn't.
Cable and satellite TV worked. Streaming media didn't.
The big technology test came on the morning of Sept. 11. Terrorists
had attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Thousands
of people were missing. Americans wanted to communicate.
It was time to put up and shut up for "stay-in-touch" technology
– an unexpected pop quiz for the gadgetry that's invaded our
lives over the past decade. During those tense hours following the
attack, people either connected or they didn't. Excuses didn't cut
it.
At the end of the day, most communications technologies fared
well, despite extensive destruction of equipment, damaged cables
and loss of electrical power. Users quickly learned what worked
and what didn't, navigating around damaged systems to find functioning
alternatives.
LIMITED COMMUNICATIONS
New York City's wired phone system took a big hit. Verizon sustained
equipment damage at key central offices, cutting off service in
lower Manhattan and limiting it elsewhere throughout the city. In
the hours after the tragedy, the national circuit-switched telephone
network was hopelessly overloaded. Getting a line in the city was
hit-and-miss for two days. In order to allow New Yorkers to use
phones to call out, AT&T limited incoming long-distance calls.
For the most part, the packet-switched Internet kept on ticking,
providing essential communications functions largely through e-mail
and instant messaging. For New Yorkers outside the immediate disaster
area, Verizon's DSL performed well on lines that could not be used
to make conventional dial-up calls. However, power losses at several
shared switching locations caused failures for some 7,000 Earthlink
DSL customers. Those trying to connect to the Internet through dial-up
lines suffered the same fate as voice callers.
Though cellphones provided some poignant last moments from hijacked
airliners just before the attack, the technology collapsed in the
following hours due to usage overload and destruction of equipment
at more than 14 cell sites. A notable exception was text messaging.
On the evening of the attack, a displaced worker stood on an Upper
West Side street corner pecking truncated words of assurance to
co-workers on his cellphone keypad. "I never thought of text messaging
before today," he said. "Now it's a lifeline."
During the days after the attack – a period of great stress
and uncertainty – cellphone sales skyrocketed throughout the
nation, according to wireless carriers. Stories of subscribers using
portable phones to check on the well-being of family and friends
touched a deep chord. In the New York area, lines formed at cellphone
stores to purchase new service.
"Now everyone wants their wives and kids to have cellphones for
security reasons," Thomas J. Lee, a managing director at J.P. Morgan
Chase & Co., told the Wall Street Journal. "I think that the
utility and importance of having a mobile phone has really been
underscored."
TAKING A PAGE
Portable wireless e-mail devices, particularly the Blackberry
from Research in Motion (RIM) of Waterloo, Ontario, got rave reviews
for reliable performance. Blackberry pagers connect to the Internet
through wireless data networks operated by Cingular Wireless of
Atlanta and Motient Corp. of Reston, Va. There were remarkable stories
of Blackberry owners who used the technology to evacuate employees
and stay in touch when no other communications technology was available.
Other wireless e-mail systems weren't as reliable. There were
reports that Skytel lost 30 percent of its capacity while Arch Wireless
lost five of its frequencies, interrupting service to some 50,000
users.
Though the Internet proved a more dependable two-way communications
technology than telephony on Sept. 11, it was far from perfect.
"The Internet proved a very important medium for allowing people
to exchange that one-bit "I'm O.K." message with loved
ones. However, it was very clear that the Net, like the phones,
relies on central backbones, which can still be weak links," said
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, in an interview
with Interactive Week.
"I'd like to see the Web integrated with peer-to-peer protocols
to make the whole infrastructure more resilient," Berners-Lee said.
Perhaps the most glaring weakness of the Internet was its inability
to deliver news to large numbers of simultaneous users in the hours
after the attack. Major news sites such as CNN.com, MSNBC, The New
York Times and the Associated Press were mostly inaccessible. Even
when one got through, the sites were extremely slow. Streaming media
access generally failed.
Early indications are that fear caused by the disaster will boost
two Internet-enabled services – off-site data storage and videoconferencing
– in the coming months.
Services providing off-site data backups got a new look, both
from businesses and individuals who saw a new fragility in their
current systems. Since the dot.com crash, most free personal data
backup sites have disappeared. A notable exception is Apple's free
Web-based iTools, which offers Macintosh users 20 megabytes of data
storage. Fee-based data storage services for business and individuals
are offered by companies such as Backjack (http://www.backjack.com),
@Backup (http://www.backup.com)
and Netmass SystemSafe (http://www.systemrestore.com).
VIRTUAL CONNECTION
Anxiety over flying and fewer flight options are generating new
interest in videoconferencing that uses Internet connections. Virtual
meeting services are offered by such companies as WebEx.com, PlaceWare.com
and Centra.com.
A slowing global economy this year had already begun to shake
out frivolous communications technology. The events of Sept. 11
will probably finish the job. Look for a refocus of interest on
improving what worked and abandoning what didn't.
Frank Beacham is a New York City-based writer and producer. His
Web site is at www.beacham.com.
E-mail: frank@beacham.com.
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