Barely 48 hours after the devastating earthquake in Pakistan, the first mobile satellite broadband terminals reportedly are being installed in the country. The response is the work of non-governmental organization Télécoms Sans Frontieres (TSF), which reports that it had a crew mobilizing from its base in Sri Lanka as aftershocks continued to rock the region.

TSF will up mobile satellite telecommunication centers in Pakistan for rescue teams, local authorities and any other emergency relief workers as needed. In addition to broadband, the centers will voice and fax service. TSF said the Sri Lanka crew was expected to be on site by Sunday — although as of press time it could not be confirmed that the crew arrived — and putting its gear into place Monday. A second team dispatched from France was also said to be en route. Most landline communications to the areas hit by the magnitude 7.6 earthquake have been severed.

TSF maintains caches of equipment at bases in Nicaragua and Thailand needed to set up emergency satellite communications. As a result, the non-governmental organization can have communications up and operating almost anywhere in the world within 48 hours. The gear includes a variety of Inmarsat M4 satellite terminals operating at 64 to 128 kilobits per second, plus the recent addition of the first Regional Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) equipment, operating at 144 Kbps. The TSF teams also bring terminals for transmission of video over broadband, for real-time visual assessment of the situation in the field.

The TSF response to the earthquake came as the group was in the process of setting up three satellite broadband terminals in Guatemala, hit by the combination of hurricane- caused mudslides, earthquakes and a volcanic eruption.