Why Is Less Than 99.9% Uptime Acceptable?

Ian Lamont writes "Telcos, ISPs, mobile phone companies and other communication service providers are known for their complex pricing plans and creative attempts to give less for more. But Larry Borsato asks why we as customers are willing to put up with anything less than 99.999% uptime? That's the gold standard, and one that we are used to thanks to regulated telephone service. When it comes to mobile phone service, cable TV, Internet access, service interruptions are the norm — and everyone seems willing to grin and bear it: 'We're so used cable and satellite television reception problems that we don't even notice them anymore. We know that many of our emails never reach their destination. Mobile phone companies compare who has the fewest dropped calls (after decades of mobile phones, why do we even still have dropped calls?) And the ubiquitous BlackBerry, which is a mission-critical device for millions, has experienced mass outages several times this month. All of these services are unregulated, which means there are no demands on reliability, other than what the marketplace demands.' So here's the question for you: Why does the marketplace demand so little when it comes to these services?"

Comments

Re:Reality Check

[kundziad]

It's even more funny that neither banks have to guarantee full availability of money if we are already talking about such things.

Re:Partly correct

[Heembo]

Then he decided to do it better but clearly never understood what made Unix so good (simplicity). Torvald on the other hand was ONLY looking for simplicity Oh yea, really? Then tell me why it takes 5 hours and an act of god to get my frigging wireless card to work on Linux!