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From: shibumi@farcomp.UUCP (Kenton A. Hoover)
Newsgroups: news.admin,news.config
Subject: Disaster Planning
Keywords: doom naysayers death destruction
Message-ID: <103@farcomp.UUCP>
Date: 25 Oct 89 23:43:33 GMT
Distribution: news
Lines: 26


During hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural disasters, one item that
always becomes at a premium is PHONE SERVICE.  News of the problems quickly
increases the strain on phone services, due to emergency use, welfare
inquiry (i.e. calling the folks to say "I'm fine!") and sell orders to
your broker (:-).  Often, power gets knocked down, and the local telco
must fall back on their own, limited battery resources to run the phone
system.

However, computers, provided there is power and phone service running
them, still continue calling other USENET sites, relaying mail and news.
Each connection costs a phone call, which can be an expensive phone cal
for other, in terms of power and perhaps, a needed bit of CO switching
time.  I doubt that anyone really questions the need for uninterrupted
"rec.humor.funny" service during a period of local emergency.

I propose that there be an disaster plan for USENET that entails its being
"turned off" in local areas during periods when utility services are
suffering excessive loading.  

Flame on, people.
-- 
| Kenton A. Hoover                                                           |
| Postmaster General                                    shibumi@farcomp.UUCP |
| Farallon Computing Inc.                                    +1 415 849 2331 |
|         "Evil will always triumph over good because good is dumb"          |