Storm Aftermath -- Still Recovering, One Week Later

Believe it or not, we still have 30,000 customers in our service area who still are without electricity, phone or cable.  The damage by last Sunday's surprise hurricane-force windstorm has been shocking. 

Friday morning, power was finally restored at our Network Operations Center.  Two huge generators kept our network up and running for 5 days, nonstop.  Those generators ran the equipment but the building was largely without lights or air conditioning.  Even though the generators kept the systems powered, it still took people showing up to work, every day and every night, in sometimes sweltering heat, to monitor our storm-stressed network and keep it working as best we could.

Hundreds of people at Insight canceled vacations, worked endlessly, even slept in their office, to restore service to normal as quickly as possible.  Thousands more at the power, phone and other cable companies have been doing the same for their customers throughout the storm-damaged area. 

I wanted to take a moment to thank them from the bottom of my heart.  Their dedication to their companies, their neighbors and their communities was, simply put, heroic.  If you are driving by one of those crews still out there fixing stuff, why not take a moment to thank them too.

In other news. . .

Comcast's New Network Management Includes Downstream Traffic [IP Democracy]

IP Democracy has posted an extensive analysis of Comcast's recently disclosed network management protocols. Comcast's release was mandated by the FCC in an August 20 order regarding Comcast's network management vis a vis peer-to-peer file sharing.

Comcast's new network management protocol is completely protocol agnostic - meaning that it applies regardless of which Internet applications a subscriber uses. Basically, if a user exceeds 70% of an assigned bandwidth consumption threshold, their Internet connection can be subject to delays. The network management protocol applies to both upstream and downstream traffic (not just upstream traffic as it previously had).  I applaud Comcast for being so responsive to the demands of the FCC in their reprimand, but I still think the fix is worse than the problem it was designed to repair.  Instead of isolating the response to such heavy use to the specific acitivity the customer is doing, Comcast will now be forced to de-prioritize all of the customer's activities. 

IP Democracy has complete copies of the Comcast filing with the FCC if the network engineer in you wants to take a look at the nuts and bolts of their network management plan.

Is it worry time for the networks? Cable triumphs over broadcast at 60th Emmys [Variety]

Last night's Emmy Awards confirmed the growing domination of cable programming over broadcast at the annual awards ceremony. This year's awards went 18-10 in favor of cable programming - with AMC's "Mad Men" series being the big winner. According to this article, there's a good chance that by 2010 the awards ceremony will migrate to cable from its current broadcast platform.

Android: Google's Dream, Apple's Nightmare? [Time]

Is Google's mobile operating system - Android - going to be the iPhone killer? That's the question being posed by many industry watchers as T-Mobile unveils the first mobile phone featuring Android this week. While Apple provides iPhone users access to a "walled garden" of applications at its Apps Store, Android promises to allow users to download free applications from any developer that wants to create them. Android will also be available on phones from a number of carriers, unlike AT&T's exclusive deal with Apple.

The two distinct differences in approach to the mobile market will merit close observation to see which option that consumers gravitate toward.

Comments

[Paris]

I want to say thank you to the Northern Kentucky team.. You guys ROCK! Less downtime than Duke.. I saw quite a few mobile generators out powering the system.. Even saw a tech sleeping in his truck..

Sad thing is, for the first few days of the outage, we saw more Insight trucks out on the road than Duke trucks!

[Alex]

I want to know why Bowling Green still does not have CBS32 out of Louisville. It has been down for months now and there was no storm. What's up with that Michael?