Neutral Tandem proposes independent tandem infrastructure to secure national communications infrastructure

| 01.18.2008 | 13:33:447008 |

January 18 '08: A white paper released by Neutral Tandem, has proposed the introduction of an "independent tandem infrastructure" - what Barron's Online reported to be a solution to "fixing interconnection problems among wireless, wireline, cable, Internet and other telecom carriers."

In the white paper, Neutral Tandem found that that during the attacks on 9/11 and in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, "the resulting failures of the (Public Switched Telephone Network) PSTN were identical" despite the obvious differences in the disasters.

Citing the differences, Neutral Tandem quoted the Discovery Insitute's special report on 9/11 and the Federal Communications Commission respectively, "When the World Trade Center collapsed [it] knocked out a telecommunications facility in Lower Manhattan that supplied 80 percent of the New York Stock Exchange's communications capacity. ... The wireline telephone network sustained significant damage both to the switching centers that route calls and to the lines used to connect buildings and customers on the network."

"Having an independent second tandem network to the PSTN," Neutral Tandem wrote, would allow for a more "effective and more rapid means to add much-needed switch and route redundancy and diversity, particularly for competitive switches."

Currently, Neutral Tandem is working with most major telecom companies in the country including AT&T, Sprint Nextel and Comcast Cable Communications.

neutraltandemdiversity.pdf