[RTC List] The Rob & Cherie Arkley Fiberoptic Cable

[William Van Hefner]

Elaine-

Many ATM machines functioned because they utilize VSAT. Look for a 3-4',
round satellite dish on the roof of places that use these. These are great
for running credit card transactions and such, but there is too much
latency for voice communications, VPN or many other broadband
applications. Why it is that local banks in the area will not spring an
extra $139/mo or so for commercial VSAT service at their branches is
beyond me.

The Sheriff's department still uses the County's quite reliable two-way
radio system for dispatching and most other routine communications. With
the exception of doing lookups for warrants, they should not have much of
a problem. CHP also has a very extensive wireless netwoark, as does EPD
and many, many other County, State and Federal agencies. AT&T has it's own
private commercial radio system as well (how else would they notify crews
to go out and fix the fiber cut?). There is also a state-run
telecommunications system in California that is utilized by many state
agencies like Cal-Trans. I believe that it is called Cal-Net. They most
likely can communicate fine between themselves. It's the public's ability
to reach them that is the weak link in the chain.


-- 

William Van Hefner
President

Vantek Communications, Inc.
3144 Broadway, Ste 3
Eureka, CA 95501-3838
707.476.0833 ph
800.331.4638 fx
e-mail: vantek at sonic.net


> Just to bring a tiny bit of reality into all this thetoric, I, was
> shopping in McKinleyville on the day of the outage.  Two of the three
> businesses I went to had no difficulty in using either credit or debit
> cards.  The third could not accept them.
>
> I also visited the Sheriff's office in McKinleyville, and the
> receptionist said they were not having any difficulties with their
> communications. In fact, she did not even know that the internet was
> down until I told her.
>
>
>
> William Van Hefner wrote:
>> Michael,
>>
>> Benefits private industry?!!? I don't know what planet you are living
>> on,
>> but down here on Earth I spent the entire day without any phone service.
>> My Sprint Wireless service didn't allow me to make any local or long
>> distance calls or even reach an operator. God only knows what would have
>> happened, had I needed to dial 9-1-1. This issue is not about how to
>> benefit "private industry", it is about serving the needs of the average
>> Humboldt County citizen, which is what our public officials are
>> supposedly
>> elected to do. If it's important to me, then it should be important to
>> them. The last time I checked, representing the voters was their job,
>> not
>> just something they did in their spare time.
>>
>> For that matter "private industry", consists of businesses owned and
>> worked at by real human beings. The "public sector" is made up of those
>> whose job it is to serve the public who pays their salaries. Our
>> government was created to serve the people and protect their rights, not
>> the other way around.
>>
>> As for your concern in regards to Mr. Arkley, I'd say that he has just
>> as
>> much right to demand that our public officials represent our interests
>> as
>> taxpayers as any other citizen. If our public officials do not have time
>> to listen to the concerns of their constituents, then they should be
>> promptly impeached or voted out of office as quickly as the law will
>> allow.
>>
>> And as for your insistence that fiber redundancy would only benefit the
>> "few", and your inference that the rich would benefit more than the
>> poor,
>> you might want to get out into our community a little more often in
>> order
>> to see how directly this affects all aspects of people's lives. For
>> starters, the trend these days is that not everyone can afford both a
>> landline and a wireless phone. Those with low incomes generally have to
>> choose between one or the other, and the price drop in wireless phones
>> has
>> made them the more acceptable of the two. What happens to their ability
>> to
>> communicate with their families when they have no phone service? For
>> that
>> matter, what happens to those families who are going through hard times
>> and can't afford to put dinner on the table without using a credit card?
>> How long should they have to go without groceries while AT&T patches
>> cables back together? What about the elderly who depend on home
>> monitoring
>> services, most of which dial numbers outside of the area? What about the
>> public buildings that rely upon reliable phone service for their (fire)
>> alarm systems (mine dials a 1-800 number)? What if a child got sick and
>> his parents could not reach the poison control hotline, or someone who
>> was
>> mentally ill couldn't reach a suicide hotline? Perhaps you could explain
>> to their families that these services weren't really important, because
>> only rich people or private businesses stood much to gain by having a
>> reliable and inexpensive way for 99%+ of the public to communicate with
>> the outside world?
>>
>> Anyone putting 30 seconds or more of thought into this knows how vital
>> it
>> is to public safety that we do not allow this situation to continue.
>> Wealthy businesspeople can obviously afford to get around the problem.
>> The
>> average Humboldt County citizen can't. Mr. Arkley has nothing to
>> personally gain in any of this. His company can afford to bring in their
>> own wireless system if they want to. It seems to me to be in poor taste
>> to
>> mock him when he is going out of his way to help support the rest of us.
>>
>>
>
>