I know that the capacity throughout the network I was working on at the time was designed to handle peak loads with a comfortable margin, and I would surmise that that is the case on many, if not most networks. It seems obvious that the scope of the analysis of this issue must include datacenters and servers, not only the net.

Other than the electrical power issue in NYC, I don't recall any loss of communications on 9/11/2001 that related directly to the network.

We where providing emergency transit services to operators in Europe during that day who lost parts or all of their transatlantic services. At the same time people where obviously relaying on the net for information (or we wouldn't have seen the congestions) but the net failed to deliver (congestions at the servers). So, perhaps it's time to start re-thinking what we did - to some extent I think that we already have. - kurtis -