communication networks for humans

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Right on djf

Begin forwarded message:

From: Mike O'Dell <mo () ccr org>
Date: September 10, 2005 6:06:12 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: communication networks for humans


i think people are missing a subtle point

it is not sufficient to just have "radios" which
can talk to each other

the real problem is controlling when they should talk
to each other, who can make those decisions, and how
aggregations ("teams") get formed and dissolved.

it would be a serious bug for two fire crews not
on the same scene to hear the traffic of the other crew.
that would make things *much* worse instead of better.

however, two fire crews arriving on the same scene
may need to form one team with one commander.
who decides that is the easier problem - there are
protocols in place now for establishing command.
but how do various radios get informed as to
which traffic they should copy and which traffic
they should ignore? and how does that get done
dynamically, in real time, and securely?

i suggest these are actually hard problems which
do not have pat answers, certainly not off-the-shelf
answers at any kind of serious scale. when the
problem locus expands to include local, metropolitan,
state, and regional assets, where you need dynamic
hierarchical team-forming, the problem is quite
challenging.

there's probably a good PhD thesis in here.

    -mo





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