In the post Sept. 11, 2001 world, many governments are looking for ways to improve emergency response in the event of a terrorist action. Recently, the Ottawa Fire Service in Ontario, Canada, tapped C-Com Satellite Systems Inc. to provide its iNetVu mobile satellite antenna system for the service’s Provincial Hazmat (hazardous materials)/CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear) Response Team to provide vital communications in the event of a terrorist attack.

“Ontario is a relatively large area and we have various areas in the province where there are no communications through [wireless] or landline,” Ottawa Fire Services Chief of Special Operations Kim Ayotte told Satellite News. “Because of that, we need interoperability with our partners, especially if there are multiple incidents happening at the same time.” With the iNetVu system, “we can actually communicate with them.” The iNetVu mobile antenna is equipped with a Viasat LinkStar modem capable of delivering download speeds of up to 58 megabits per second (mbps) and upload speeds of 1.67 mbps.

Ayotte said the C-Com solution would facilitate a wide range of communications options in the event of a terrorist action or other major disaster scenarios. In addition to communicating with the other Hazmat/CBRN teams, “We also need the capability to do research beyond the normal research from our hazmat vehicle. By installing [this satellite system], we now have the capability of doing online research through secure networks for the type of event we are responding to, as well as voice-over-IP [and video conferencing]. If we are sent outside of Ottawa and we are looking to respond to an event in a ‘dead area,’ an area with no terrestrial communications options, we still have the three methods of communicating outside of the response are to our senior management in Ottawa.”

Ayotte said that so far, the province as a whole has two vehicles with the C-Com system installed. The Ontario provincial government’s Hazmat/CBRN response team was the first to get the system, making the decision for the Ottawa Hazmat/CBRN response team on what system to install for the city-level team an easy one to make. “The long and short of this for Ottawa was we wanted something that was user-friendly and compatible and interoperable with the system used by the province,” Ayotte said. The province “did the original research on this with C-Com and initially chose” the iNetVu solution.

–Gregory Twachtman (Kim Ayotte, Ottawa Fire Services, 613/580-2424, ext. 29422)