For a long time, establishing a satellite link required the user to stop or pause along the way, and that still remains a valid option today in many instances. However, mobile connectivity when fixed services are impaired, provides greater flexibility, and saves time as the user moves, either in order to arrive at the scene or, in some cases, to relocate a mobile command post or conduct mobile surveillance operations, for example.
Satcom-on-the-move (SOTM) adds another layer of wireless connectivity at critical times when redundancy and reliability cannot be given secondary roles. In the second of our two-part government series, we examine how communications on the move assist in times of crisis.
Earlier this year, the ship Calypso, carrying 462 passengers, issued an urgent call for help while cruising in the English Channel. A fire had broken out in the ship's engine room, but U.K. firefighters, including several who arrived via a rescue helicopter, respond quickly to calls. The response was the first by the members of the United Kingdom's new Maritime Incident Response Group (MIRG), which consists of 15 specially trained and satellite phone-equipped Fire and Rescue Service teams that can be rapidly inserted onto the deck of a vessel in distress.
"All MIRG teams have now been supplied with Iridium satellite phones, which will ensure any team mobilized to an at-sea incident will have good communications with the shore," says Fire Officer Mervyn Kettle, Sea of Change Project Manager at the U.K. Maritime and Coastguard Agency. "The Iridium satellite phone enhances the command and control facility of these specialist teams."
Satcom On The Move: A Must Have
Such equipment also has found a market in the United States, with governments in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, South Carolina and Texas having purchased Iridium equipment and services for disaster preparedness, says Iridium spokeswoman Liz DeCastro. A netted Iridium push-to-talk service will be available to all users by 2007, while multi-exchange units -- like IDL Corp.'s MXU 2000 -- with antennas enable Iridium users to maintain their SOTM link by connecting their Iridium satellite phones via any building's public branch exchange. "More customers are learning about creative ways to work around the line-of-sight necessity," DeCastro says.
"We have every command vehicle and interoperability van equipped with SOTM," says Jake McHatton, telecommunications chief in the California Office of Emergency Services (OES). "The OES operational readiness plan includes SOTM for key positions that have been identified as must-have communications -- no matter what. SOTM supplements our OASIS - Operational Area Satellite Information System - which has two fixed hubs for redundancy, 570 fixed sites to Operational Area Emergency Operations Centers and seven mobile dishes mounted on trailers that provide voice connectivity -- soon to be upgraded to include data and video."
Inmarsat's Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) service, now available in North America, provides broadband-on-the-move capability. Users are always on the BGAN network but not always transmitting. According to Henrik Norrelykke, president of Thrane & Thrane Inc. in Virginia Beach, Va., the Explorer 527 broadband-on-the-move terminal is a lightweight and easily deployed system that handles inbound data rates up to 492 kilobits per second (kbps), a speed which supports streaming video and also can beam voice imagery to disaster response personnel. "SOTM requirements are changing rapidly as new technologies emerge," Norrelykke says. "VSAT and Ku-band SOTM have emerged with smaller footprint antennae and auto tracking systems. However, the reality is that not one system can be all to everyone. A combination of technologies brings a great deal of capability that was never afforded before."
Thrane & Thrane can provide integrated systems that can combine the BGAN broadband-on-the-move technology with a redundant link via a Ku-band VSAT back at an emergency operations center. "We are using SOTM service provided by Globalstar which splits the bandwidth and supports three satellite phones and Internet access," says Fire Chief Charles Werner of the Charlottesville (Va.) Fire Department. The fire department has installed the equipment in three mobile vehicles, including two command/communications trailers. The satellite commmunications equipment got a live test after Hurricane Katrina, when firefighters from Charlottesville were dispatched to Mississippi to provide responders access to e-mail and satellite phones.
According to Tony Navarra, president of global operations at Globalstar Inc., states like Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida and Alabama have joined a number of federal agencies and departments, including the U.S. Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, in contracting with Globalstar for large bundles of service minutes to be used with mobile handsets, data modems and small transportable multi-channel modem products. During the response to Hurricane Katrina, Globalstar deployed more than 12,000 phones to the Gulf Coast region. "Many offices are now using prepaid or annual service contracts in order to be better prepared and more multimode radios capable of GSM, CDMA and satellite capability," Navarra says. "Applications such as freeze-frame video, graphics and location mapping information, which require speeds of up at 38.4 kbps, are in demand."
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