Wireless communication for public safety
Hurricanes, terrorist attacks, earthquakes and other catastrophic events take a large toll in human life, property damage and a reduction (if not elimination) of government service delivery. To be sure, our "first responders" such as police, fire fighters and medical personnel are critically dependent upon effective communication tools at times like these. After reading and hearing first hand about recent experiences in New Orleans, New York and Texas, I thought I'd pass along some interesting and sometimes surprising observations about the effectiveness of wireless communications during a crisis.
I have the privilege of serving on the board of directors for the Humboldt #1 Fire Protection District. Aside from the use of radio transmission, I noticed that the fire fighters and management rely a lot on pagers for communications. After further research, I discovered that pagers are used extensively by police, hospitals and other emergency personnel, as well. I found this odd because I was under the impression that pagers are too low tech to function adequately considering the likely scenarios that I thought would play out during a disaster. Turns out I was wrong.
A recent article in Government Technology Magazine confirms that in most disasters a pager will prove to be more effective compared to a cell phone, Internet connection or even radio transmission. The reason is attributed to the network architecture that makes pagers work. Most paging networks use digital satellite signaling instead of using land lines to reach transmission facilities and towers. Therefore, recovery during a disaster does not require extensive repairs to re-establish connectivity to the outside world. Depending on the particular circumstances, paging service may not go down at all in a disaster if the transmission facility itself is still operational and has electric power. Yet the same transmission facility would not be functional if it relied on outside lines to receive and send signals.
I attended a court technology conference recently and the representative from New Orleans said he was shocked when his cell phone, email and land phone connectivity vaporized after Hurricane Katrina hit. He told a story that would be amusing under most circumstances if it were not for the seriousness of the problem ... his boss called an emergency staff meeting to assess the extent of damage to the court and to come up with business recovery options. The problem was that the boss sent out the notice by email using a satellite connection provided by the military. Of course no one showed up because none of the recipients had Internet service, electricity or functioning laptops.
Actually one other person showed up ... the fellow relating the story. How did he find out about the meeting? He was in the middle of emergency cleanup at home and observed his young daughter using her cell phone to text message her school mates. Being a high tech guy, he used a Blackberry, which doesn't have text messaging, and being an older guy, he didn't know or appreciate the art of text messaging. He soon discovered that text messaging uses low frequency transmission and even though most of the cell towers were not working, the few that were could carry text messages but not cell phone signals. He quickly learned how to text message, started contacting others and somehow found out about the meeting.
The lessons here are that low tech will sometimes trump high tech, and things are not always as they appear. So the next time you hear someone's pager go off and think, "boy, is this guy behind the times," you might make a mental note to look him up when the local Internet, cell phone, telephone and wireless connections go down. He may be one of the few that is still online. And you better hope it's a cop, fire fighter, ambulance driver or emergency room staff.
Chris Crawford
www.justiceserved.com