The difference is that instead of talking about it, a few of us got together and actually pushed it into a reality instead of doomed academic discussion. I remember Dan Lane negotiating SMS accessibility to and from the affected regions (indeed, Dan did most of the work, I just tried to keep people off his back!) and he was largely successful. At the core was a Asterisk PBX, which Dan tickled into doing what was needed.

The same concept was used in Pakistan, after the earthquake. The same concepts will be used again, and hopefully morph and evolve into things better and better - to save lives. And one of the things necessary for that evolution to happen is network neutrality. Voice over IP (VoIP) is becoming increasingly used for disaster communication, and SMS will also, hopefully, gain popularity - which means that the gateway to the internet for SMS must remain neutral, or the delays in time to get appropriate access could mean lost lives, or lost quality of life.

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