Just a note here from New Zealand news service, covering the cyclone damage in Fiji. The islands now rely exclusively on cell phone service, but the towers have blown down. The Fiji correspondent noted that, 'in the old days' all the village chiefs had little two-way radios. These radios were serviced with towers, that did blow down, but a coat hanger or bit of wire would get the service going again, and they could alert the next island that they were in trouble, and so on, down the chain of islands. I think he he mentioned they could even reach Suva (capital of Fiji). Interesting note, when there's no redundancy in service left, AND, the cell phone service goes down in a natural disaster. Denise ===== "it's easier to use your mouse than your brain" Denise Rall, Sustainable Forestry Mentoring Coordinator & PhD student, School of Education, Southern Cross University, PO Box 157, Lismore, NSW, 2480 Australia Phone +61-2-6624-8627 Fax +61-2-6624-8637 Office (Tuesdays) (02) 6620 3577 Mob 0438 233 344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/edu/research/deniserall/index.html __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com