Nationwide Emergency Alert - Wed nov 9 2pm

[billski]

Nationwide Emergency Alert System (EAS)

It will be nice to see if it scale out to the Internet. Base on what I saw during 9-11 the Internet was brought to it's knees for an extended period of time. Someday I would hope Internet II covers this.

The only truly scalar transmission is radio and television broadcast (no, not cable).

Interesting to hear what you all know/think.

 

[Glenn]

I see it being more effective over radio vs non cable TV. How many people bothered to get a digital converter so they can set up the ol rabbit ears when the cable goes out? Plus, if you own a vehicle, you have a radio.

 

[RootDKJ]

This test is a really good idea. You have no idea how problematic the EAS infrastructure can be in a cable tv system. There's no standard architecture either. Providers are free to trigger eas via contact closure or subscription to a network multicast stream or something in between.

 

[Geoff]

Nationwide Emergency Alert System (EAS)

It will be nice to see if it scale out to the Internet. Base on what I saw during 9-11 the Internet was brought to it's knees for an extended period of time. Someday I would hope Internet II covers this.

The only truly scalar transmission is radio and television broadcast (no, not cable).

Interesting to hear what you all know/think.

Internet 2 is mostly application frameworks. That won't solve squat.

The problem with the internet is that you can't properly do flow control out at the edges. Sitting at my PC, there's no such thing as a congestion notification that tells my PC to start rate limiting. You can only do so much with TCP windowing since so much of network traffic is UDP/datagrams.

What is a "scalar transmission"? If you mean "scalable", that's another thing entirely.

In cable, the entire network uses DiffServ. High priority packets (voice) are handled at higher priority than best-effort customer data. It would be trivial to implement an "emergency" DiffServ Code Point. All the infrastructure is in place to handle it. You could easily push emergency information to any endpoint on the network and know that it will get there.

 

[Geoff]

This test is a really good idea. You have no idea how problematic the EAS infrastructure can be in a cable tv system. There's no standard architecture either. Providers are free to trigger eas via contact closure or subscription to a network multicast stream or something in between.

It screws the crap out of my Motorola HD set-top box. If I get an emergency broadcast system test while I'm using it, I usually have to reboot it.

 

[RootDKJ]

Internet 2 is mostly application frameworks. That won't solve squat.

The problem with the internet is that you can't properly do flow control out at the edges. Sitting at my PC, there's no such thing as a congestion notification that tells my PC to start rate limiting. You can only do so much with TCP windowing since so much of network traffic is UDP/datagrams.

What is a "scalar transmission"? If you mean "scalable", that's another thing entirely.

In cable, the entire network uses DiffServ. High priority packets (voice) are handled at higher priority than best-effort customer data. It would be trivial to implement an "emergency" DiffServ Code Point. All the infrastructure is in place to handle it. You could easily push emergency information to any endpoint on the network and know that it will get there.

Internet EAS will never work unless someone writes a law that forces all computers (or operating systems) to become EAS compliant. Sure an EAS alert could "pre-empt" all internet cmts traffic, but the main problem is getting the computers on the networtk to listen to the message. There's no mechanism to do that.

Geoff, an EAS event shouldn't brick your Moto DCT, outside of the EAS event window, which is usually only 3-4 minutes.

 

[billski]

So what happens when everyone, like me brings TV, Internet and Phone together over one IP line? And what about cell?

Here's the scenario with my kids: Internet, cell phone. They barely watch TV at all, preferring to stream shows/movies/stuff they want. They don't listen to, nor do they have a broadcast receiver. It does not seem like any of their preferred modes scale.. Are they doomed?

 

[Geoff]

Geoff, an EAS event shouldn't brick your Moto DCT, outside of the EAS event window, which is usually only 3-4 minutes.

It doesn't brick it. It just doesn't respond to the remote until I cycle power. It's happened twice. That's what happens when you outsource both Motorola/GI software maintenance and Comcast QA to India. Comcast just pushed NCS MTA QA to India, too.

 

[Geoff]

So what happens when everyone, like me brings TV, Internet and Phone together over one IP line? And what about cell?

Here's the scenario with my kids: Internet, cell phone. They barely watch TV at all, preferring to stream shows/movies/stuff they want. They don't listen to, nor do they have a broadcast receiver. It does not seem like any of their preferred modes scale.. Are they doomed?

Duck & Cover

 

[RootDKJ]

It doesn't brick it. It just doesn't respond to the remote until I cycle power. It's happened twice. That's what happens when you outsource both Motorola/GI software maintenance and Comcast QA to India. Comcast just pushed NCS MTA QA to India, too.

Comcast doesn't outsource video QA to India, more like an importer at times it seems.

No really. As soon as the EAS indicator disappears, your box should allow remote functions again.

 

[RootDKJ]

So what happens when everyone, like me brings TV, Internet and Phone together over one IP line? And what about cell?

Here's the scenario with my kids: Internet, cell phone. They barely watch TV at all, preferring to stream shows/movies/stuff they want. They don't listen to, nor do they have a broadcast receiver. It does not seem like any of their preferred modes scale.. Are they doomed?

Shouldn't it be the responsibility of the parents to relay emergency information to their kids?

 

[billski]

Duck & Cover

I remember doing that. :-?

 

[billski]

Shouldn't it be the responsibility of the parents to relay emergency information to their kids?

With caller ID, they don't answer and don't reply to text! :blink:

(not always...)

 

[ctenidae]

I'm pretty sure I was watching TV (Dish Network) but I didn't see the broadcast- did it not happen, or did I sleep through it? Or does Dish not count?

 

[hammer]

I'm pretty sure I was watching TV (Dish Network) but I didn't see the broadcast- did it not happen, or did I sleep through it? Or does Dish not count?

The test didn't go quite as hoped...

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-11-09/...system-cable-box-cable-and-satellite?_s=PM:US

 

[ctenidae]

The test didn't go quite as hoped...

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-11-09/...system-cable-box-cable-and-satellite?_s=PM:US

Good that they tested it, I suppose.
At only 30 seconds, I could have easily missed it.

 

[Nick]

Yeah I didn't hear it but I had heard it went pretty poorly.

it is odd to think about how things would be if communication was messed up. We all take it for granted, at least I do. That Ice storm we had a few years back when much of new england was knocked out, no power, no phone, no nothing... very eerie feeling.

 

[RootDKJ]

This test is a really good idea. You have no idea how problematic the EAS infrastructure can be in a cable tv system. There's no standard architecture either. Providers are free to trigger eas via contact closure or subscription to a network multicast stream or something in between.

The test didn't go quite as hoped...

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-11-09/...system-cable-box-cable-and-satellite?_s=PM:US

Who would have guessed? :blink: