February 26th, 2008
Lose your VoIP in today's massive South Florida blackout?
(via South Florida Sun-Sentinel)
Quoted on the website of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel newspaper, Florida Power & Light spokeperson Aletha Player estimated that some 700,000 South Floridians lost power due to a shutdown at an FP&L nuke plant today.
Power losses and VoIP don’t play well together, especially when we are talking about VoIP over your PC.
Applying VoIP penetration rates to that 700,000 estimate, I can conclude that several thousand South Floridians lost their VoIP connection when the power went out.
Were you one of them? Were you talking via, say Skype or Vonage and then everything went dark? Or did your surge protector cover your back for a few mins., giving you time to shut off your PC and give your VoIP connection a “I think the power has just gone out, I’ll call you back when our electricity is restored” signoff?
Tell us your stories via Comment. I’ll roll ‘em up and fashion a new post from them.
Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
