Subject: RE: [Ieprep] Is voice the best communications method in an emergency

From: "Ayyasamy, Senthilkumar (UMKC-Student)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2003 20:53:53 -0600

> "In combat, e-mail is said to be more reliable than voice 
> transmission, which is prone to cross talk and crashes more 
> often than the Tactical Internet."

 It depends on the situation and context. Last week, I read
an article which explained the usefulness of VoIP during
emergency times.
http://www.cio.com/archive/020103/et_article.html

"On Sept. 11, 2001, the phone company's central switching
 station serving the headquarters of New York City's Department 
 of Sanitation (DSNY) was crushed by the collapse of the Towers. 
 The very agency with line responsibility for the Herculean cleanup 
 effort that would soon be required suddenly found itself unable 
 to communicate with its offices and personnel. Even worse, DSNY 
 headquarters soon learned it was on its own so far as restoring 
 service was concerned; its telecom provider-Verizon-had its own 
 wounds to look after. But the Sanitation Department's commissioner 
 made his needs clear to MIS Director Steven Stam: He wanted his 
 telephones back immediately, whether it was possible or not. 

 Fortunately Stam had a few functional assets, including a reasonably 
 robust LAN and the knowledge that there was a fiber data line running 
 through the building that did not terminate at the destroyed Verizon 
 facility. Strictly speaking, the fiber didn't belong to his department 
 (it was leased by the Department of Health), but these were unusual 
 times ("I begged, I borrowed, I was accused of stealing," Stam 
 remembers), and by Monday, Sept. 24, he had started to lash those 
 together to support a voice-over-IP (VoIP)network-using the LAN to 
 carry phone calls and support a gateway into the public switched 
 telephone network (PSTN). By the following Monday he received the 
 go-ahead for the rollout, and the new phones began to ring one week 
 later. With technical help from Dimension Data (a networking 
 infrastructure services company in Reston, Va.), Stam had 285 VoIP 
 phones running throughout the department's headquarters. Today, with 
 600 phones in three buildings on the new system, Stam is beginning to 
 refocus on more traditional IS issues, such as tracking the reduction 
 in costs. "Fifty percent of our phone calls are internal," he says. "

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From: "Steve Silverman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2003 08:36:35 -0500

It's a human factor.  There are times when voice is more flexible and
believable.  It's easier
to trust a voice you recognize than an email (with no authentication).
Many people don't type
and in an emergency they can talk a lot faster than they can type (or
hunt and peck).  In practice, it is much
better to support multiple info channels.

Steve

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked]
> [mailto:[email-masked]]On Behalf Of
> Ayyasamy, Senthilkumar (UMKC-Student)
> Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2003 9:54 PM
> To: Sean Donelan; [email-masked]
> Subject: RE: [Ieprep] Is voice the best communications method in an
> emergency
>
>
>
...

---

From: Henning Schulzrinne <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2003 08:42:27 -0500

Plus, this mailing list has provided ample evidence that email is not 
always the best medium for avoiding misunderstandings and may not always 
encourage the most civilized discourse. I assume the IESG and IAB, as 
well as the IETF as a whole, have reasons to regularly incorporate 
telechats, video conferences and face-to-face meetings in their processes.

---

From: RJ Atkinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2003 08:58:17 -0500

On Thursday, Feb 27, 2003, at 08:36 America/Montreal, Steve Silverman 
wrote:
> believable.  It's easier to trust a voice you recognize than an email
> (with no authentication).

In stressed situations, odds are that a lower-bandwidth CODEC will be
in use; with such CODECs, it is often the case that one can't use one's
ears to 'authenticate' the voice at the other end.

> Many people don't type and in an emergency they can talk a lot faster
> than they can type (or hunt and peck).

The opposite is also true.  People vary.  An advantage to typing is
that the bandwidth required is tremendously lower (even if one is 
signing
one's emails with a digital signature/cryptographic hash).  Another
advantage to typing is that the message is likely to be seen in whatever
form it was written.

> In practice, it is much better to support multiple info channels.

No argument on that.

Ran
[email-masked]