Eric,

I have done a lot of military and public safety. You don't need to get to the level of a pacemaker to require a unit's status and availability to be known in as certain a way as possible. There are a lot of devices that declare status of networks, or devices If the device is incapable of providing accuracy this should be known. If a device cannot deliver sevice with integrity this also should be known. It has been my experience that folks who use technology to achieve their goals can compensate for technology problems as long as they know the status of their equipment. You don't say "maybe" or "i guess".

But let's not ignore the revision control characteristic. There are other methods but this is an explicit and good one.

regards,
p

regards,
p