Nera‘s DVB-RCS Satlink System is undergoing an unexpected field test in Mississippi, helping provide satellite communications for relief operations related to Hurricane Katrina.

Engineers from Telenor Satellite Service‘s teleport in Southbury, Conn., traveled to Mississippi in the aftermath of the storm to help set up the communication system for relief workers who were “desperate” for any kind of communications, said Guy White, Southbury station director. White and Matthew Allard, a senior electrical technician at the station, drove from Southbury to Mississippi Sept. 11 with the intention of establishing a satellite communications system for a mobile medical station near Bay St. Louis, Miss., by Carolinas Medical Center. Upon arrival, they discovered that another company already had a satellite communications system in place for the station.

But the need for satellite communications is widespread within the affected region, and the Telenor engineers had run into other relief workers during the trip south that had expressed a need for such communications systems. White and Allard took their equipment to a location near Hattiesburg, Miss., where they set up the communications system at a facility dubbed Barron’s Point. The camp, located within Camp Shelby, a National Guard base, has become a receiving and distribution facility for relief operations.

The Telenor engineers set up the Nera system, which is still in beta testing, in order to provide official channels of communication as well as personal communications for workers. The system, which operates via Panamsat‘s Galaxy 10R satellite and the Nera Satellite Gateway at Southbury, is intended to meet the growing demand for broadband Internet protocol services among Telenor customers seeking a point of presence within the United States.

At Barron’s Point, the Nera system provides 50 telephone lines, four fax lines and Internet access for official use and also provides capacity for two computers and two telephone lines for workers to use in down times. All of this is being done with test equipment, including a 1.2-meter dish, a 1.8-meter dish and new software. The system is being operated under a temporary C-band license from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, White said.

The camp, which began with 100 people, had grown to 1,500 personnel by the time White and Allard left Sept. 15 and the number was growing daily, White said. Jake Rivers, another Telenor engineer, flew to Mississippi Sept. 17 to continue oversight of the system, which can be expanded to meet the demand, White said. “We have no clue how long it may be required,” he said. “It may be a month. It may be six months. I don’t think they [relief officials] know how long they will need it.”

Other Southbury engineers may find themselves making the trip as the Nera system continues to support the massive operation, White said. “We plan to stay indefinitely,” he added. “We will have a person with the equipment if needed, but we are trying to convince them the system is fine. There are little problems, but it is not related to our equipment.”

–Jason Bates