Congestion of phone systems

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

It is perhaps a coincidence  that right after being interviewed for the
broadcast this morning on NPR Weekend Edition on Telecommutting I suffered
one of the nasty consequences of it. Yesterday was in my part of
Pennsylvania a major mess. I could have used my driveway for a luge track
and the roads were unbelievable. Even our major highways were sheets of
ice.


So I stayed home and telecommuted. Well so did most eveyone else and the
telephone system died a horrible trunk shortage death. Most local and  all
out of area calls got re-orders. It went on and on. It does show quite well
that todays analog phone system (and that holds for digital switches) can
not host the amount and holding times of telecommuters


Dave