[Outages-discussion] FEMA, W.H. send victims to Internet

[Owen DeLong]

There are lots of sources for power that can charge a cellular phone other than a wall socket.

Worst case, you can actually do it with 4 D-Cells, a resistor and a little connector ingenuity on cell phones that use USB-based chargers.

Car adapters, solar chargers, laptop USB ports, etc. all work as well.

A Laptop battery can deliver many 8-hour-worth charges to a cell phone, while it cannot run the laptop for anywhere near that long.

I'm not saying that smartphones are a panacea. There is no panacea. However, when the other conventional communications channels have failed, this at least provides some additional alternatives and shows how the transport/platform/technology agnostic nature of the internet makes it a more robust way to deliver communications into affected areas.

If you can make ANYTHING work, you can probably get that thing onto the internet somehow. (At least for greater values of probability than virtually any other communications mechanism).

Owen

On Oct 30, 2012, at 07:39 , Lyle Giese <lyle at lcrcomputer.net> wrote:

> And how long does the battery last in your smart phone?  My wife can not go 8 hours without a charger.(that's one reason I don't have a 'smart' phone)  
> 
> Plus in really big events like Sandy or the big ice storm that went through Kentucky a couple of years ago, how long will the cell towers survive without power?  Not all of them have on sight gensets.  Plus network outages
> 
> Way to vulnerable to 'depend' on the Internet in events like this.
> 
> Lyle
> 
> On 10/30/12 08:20, Owen DeLong wrote:
>> Seems to me that cellular phones with browsers and other internet-enabled applications are the obvious answer.
>> 
>> Owen
>> 
>> On Oct 30, 2012, at 04:34 , Jared Mauch <jared at puck.nether.net> wrote:
>> 
>>> Was reading and came across this. The Internet is now the primary means of government communication replacing the emergency alert system it seems...
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> FEMA, W.H. send victims to Internet
>>> 
>>> By STEVE FRIESS | 10/29/2012 04:48 PM EDT
>>> When President Barack Obama urged Americans under siege from Hurricane Sandy to stay inside and keep watch on ready.gov for the latest, he left out something pretty important - where to turn if the electricity goes out. Despite the heightened expectation o…
>>> 
>>> READ ON POLITICO.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Jared Mauch
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>> 
>> 
>> 
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