Twelve months after the attacks that left parts of the Pentagon and
New York's financial district in rubble, public and private sector
organisations are still sorting out how to assess the lessons of 11
September and incorporate them into future plans.
One result is an increased interest in wireless technology. It
played a key part in allowing merchant bank Merrill Lynch
re-establish its New York operations in the days after the
disaster.
Merrill Lynch chief technology officer John McKinley said
investments in IEEE 802.11 and VoIP (voice over IP), were crucial.
The "wall-to-wall" wireless LAN deployments in some buildings
allowed for what McKinley called "dynamic work space
reconfiguration". Some buildings had two to three times the planned
occupancy after the terrorist attacks, so Merrill Lynch employees
drove to Jersey City offices and plugged in their VoIP
phones.
"The phones automatically hunted their way back through our
network, and we had dial tone literally overnight," McKinley
explains.
The US Congress took steps to protect itself by giving BlackBerry
handhelds to senators and representatives, said Ken Dulaney, chief
strategist at analyst group Gartner.
"It's a rudimentary data processing system, but at least the
collective knowledge can remain in place," Dulaney added.
However, problems remain with wireless deployments. Giga chief
analyst Rob Enderle said wireless technologies allow a company to
disperse both people and data so that there is no central point of
failure.
He added that there is pressure against deploying wireless because
"companies are very concerned about security", hinting at the
practice of warchalking.