by dylan tweney
published 27 september 2001

from Business 2.0:

For years we've been hearing about how the Internet was designed to withstand nuclear attacks. Well, at least we know it can resist terrorist bombardment, as was proven on Sept. 11 when the World Trade Center's collapse took out a massive chunk of Manhattan's telecommunications capability.

But the Internet itself remained strong, as data was routed around the damaged switches and transmission lines, taking alternate paths exactly as its designers intended.

The result: In the hours and days after the attack, I found -- as did many others -- that while phone lines to New York were jammed, people could be reached by e-mail and instant messaging.

And while major news sites suffered crushing levels of traffic, the Internet as a whole wasn't crippled by the surge in usage.

... READ ON:

The Internet Emerges as the Most Reliable Way to Communicate (Business 2.0, 2001/09/27)

feedback

From: "Amy Wohl" <amy@wohl.com>
Date sent: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 10:11:44 -0400

Thank goodness the Internet worked! I was in Scotland, an hour from Edinburgh, with a group of analysts at a Citrix conference on September 11. Until we got home (starting four days late on September 15 -- we got home on the 17th), the Internet was our bond with home. Citrix put up its portal and we used it to get to our email, to CNN, to the airline info -- to feel not-so-far-away.

It was very heartening to see that in the midst of so much tragedy and chaos some of the technology we believe actually helped.

From: Bob Parnes <bparnes@bizserve.com>
Date sent: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 12:42:38 -0400

It struck me while reading your latest Report (2001-09-27) that one of the reasons "phone lines to New York were jammed" is probably that many people were using those phone lines to connect to the Internet for extended periods of time.

From: Cliff Allen <cliff@Coravue.com>
Date sent: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 15:36:28 -0700

Good piece on the resiliency of the Internet. Over the past few years I've seen (with traceroute) some fixed router paths that wouldn't self-correct during outages, which made me wonder how the Net would handle a big outage or a big surge of traffic. It's good to know the Net can handle it.

I think the next thing companies will start thinking about is how to deal with customer anxiety and concerns. I've just posted an article on my personal Web site that has a few ideas and suggestions on this.

Basically, I expect companies to finally look at using the e-mail and Web tools that have been available for a good while -- such as VoIP, Web presentations, e-mail newsletters, etc., etc.

In addition to limiting the travel of salespeople, I think companies will look at using Web-based sales force automation systems to avoid carrying customer data on laptops in GoldMine and Act! databases.

Who knows where all this'll lead, but at least executives are starting to think about these issues.

From: a reader
Date sent: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 13:39:00 EDT

It's interesting that the traditional media, ever anxious to knock down its electronic rival, focused a lot of early attention on the extent to which individual Internet news sites got (or still were) overloaded, as proof that the Internet is still no rival to television when it comes to dealing with breaking news.

In my opinion, the Internet, in addition to the big benefit you cited, has had a significant moderating effect on our response to this atrocity. I've got to believe that the relative lack of bellicosity (compared to 1991, for example) in the face of a much worse provocation is the result of not only our greater fear and our recognition of the realities of how this enemy has to be engaged, but the ability of the Internet to make available in a widespread way, particularly through e-mail, views of the situation that are very different than those expressed by the corporate media.

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