Re: [tlug] What is the Sysadmin pager these days?

[Raymond Wan <rwan.kyoto@example.com>]

On Tue, Feb 18, 2014 at 7:44 AM, David Blomberg <dblomber@example.com> wrote:
>    Another problem with the old pagers is the coverage was awesome but as
> many people found out on March 11 a few years back was the Cell system has
> been gutted to the point that decent coverage is a thing of the past. I
> found a phone booth pretty quick so avoided the lines but the only friends
> that had coverage continue after the quake were AU users. My Softbank
> service was out until 10:30 that evening and a NTT friend of mine said about
> same for them.


I'm not trying to defend mobile phone providers in Japan, but that
March 11 earthquake was an exceptional circumstance that is suppose to
happen "one in a hundred years".  I'm not sure if that is a good
example of Japan's declining cellular system...  The mobile network
handles annual events such as New Year's Eve with few problems.  To
get it back within 8 hours on a day like that is not too bad; I doubt
many countries could do the same under similar circumstances...

Add to the fact that phone booths were fairly easy to find, not
covered in chewing gum or graffiti (like in most cities outside of
Japan), and were free after the earthquake, I think things still went
fine...  (Maybe in case of emergencies, they could encourage customers
to use text messages only for a bit?)

Ray