FAA issues nationwide flights ground stop ‘due to extraordinary circumstances' and ‘safety'

[AZ_HighCountry]

Duffy sounds alarm over aging FAA system after nationwide air travel shutdown

Sean Duffy blamed outdated routers and 1980s-era copper lines for the FAA ground stop, demanding Congress approve $50 billion in emergency funding.

www.foxbusiness.com

This being the USA, there is a lot of massive profiteering going on with the upgrade. That is ALOT of money to replace switching infrastructure, even if you put in multiple dedicated redundant fibre optic runs between switches imho ...

Projects like this are feasting time for companies like Rohde & Schwarz ..

Not even 10% of the voice switches so far.

I just don't get it. At DHL, we did tech refreshes every 3-5 years depending on the system. In some of the more critical distribution centers I was responsible for, we not only had divergent pathways for voice and data services, we also had tertiary 5G-based systems as well for "last resort".

 

[Ali_Baba]

Not even 10% of the voice switches so far.

I just don't get it. At DHL, we did tech refreshes every 3-5 years depending on the system. In some of the more critical distribution centers I was responsible for, we not only had divergent pathways for voice and data services, we also had tertiary 5G-based systems as well for "last resort".

I think the issue is the infrastructure is tightly coupled with the proprietary protocols which makes the act of upgrades so difficult. Now that the problem has been solved, in theory the remaining 90% should be just a roll out project where all the design problems and software issues have been resolved.

I do think this proprietary protocol lock in allows Rohde & Schwarz to rip off the government as there is no where else for the government to go.

If Rohde & Schwarz have done their "job properly", they should have converted all the hardware, and messaging protocols to "modern open standards for software and hardware" so that future upgrades are done the same as what you did at your company in terms of refresh. I suspect Rohde & Schwarz did not do it properly so as to keep "vendor lock in" in place and to milk the government in the future for upgrades..

Imagine a scenario where the backbone( infrastructure + messaging ) for the ATC was done using something like MIL-STD-1553 but where the standards intellectual property is "closed" and restricted access only ( unlike MIL-STD-1553 which is now pretty much open), then you have a scenario where doing anything with that standard is difficult because getting access to the intellectual property and associated hardware is difficult. That increases costs and enforces vendor lock in in. I firmly believe that to be the case here. Rohde & Schwarz will want to keep this all for themselves for the future to milk maintenance contracts etc.

The MIL-STD-1553 example is the best / only way I can describe what the switches, and copper are doing if i am honest with you. Its not like your open ethernet standard which is a plug and play format.

 

[Ali_Baba]

I have a sinking feeling about something major going to happen in this country over the next two years. Don't want to get into that here but I think it will be engineered.

Stock up - become a prepper ?

 

[Davey Crockett]

Donut racks full?

Yes, we sold some donuts. Saturday morning, people getting an early start.

Met a very nice older couple. They were on their way to the car show in Pawhuska

Truck stop was full.

Some truckers reported four to ten hour waits to get loaded.

Truckers delivering to the Walmart distribution for the first time.

The diesel pumps stayed busy. Our fuel hauler worked well into the night.

UPS driver from Kansas City said it was all fake.

 

[Davey Crockett]

Microsoft also went down.