Satellite Communications Fills Katrina's Telephone Void
Sept. 6, 2005
With most landline and cell phone networks still dead in New Orleans and
along the Gulf Coast where Hurricane Katrina hit hardest, there has been an
almost panicky run to satellite phone service, which has remained
uninterrupted in the days since the hurricane plowed into the region.
By W. David Gardner
TechWeb.com
http://informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=170700741
With most landline and cell phone networks still dead in New Orleans and
along the Gulf Coast where Hurricane Katrina hit hardest, there has been an
almost panicky run to satellite phone service, which has remained
uninterrupted in the days since the hurricane plowed into the region.
"Our phones are ringing off the hook," said Liz DeCastro, a spokeswoman for
Iridium Satellite. "We've just shipped 10,000 phones and we're ready to
ship another 6,000."
There has been a 3,000 percent increase in traffic in the region since the
hurricane landed in the area, DeCastro added.
Iridium is a worldwide provider of voice and data technology through its
constellation of 66 low-earth orbiting satellites. The firm has supplied
some 25,000 phones to the Department of Defense and there are reports some
are being pressed into service as commercial telephone and cell phone firms
struggled to repair their equipment damaged in the storm.
The Defense Information Systems Agency has deployed satellite equipment to
its Camp Shelby, Miss., facility and has sent Iridium phones for use on the
USS Bataan, a Navy ship that's conducting rescue operations off the coast
of Louisiana. However, given that an estimated 1.8 phones are dead, it's
not enough.
Another satellite telephone provider, Globalstar, reported that it has
deployed 10,000 phones in the Gulf Coast region. The firm said it is
deploying more than 15 times its normal volume of gear including 100 that
have been donated for the states of Louisiana and Mississippi to use.
Globalstar, which said it has been working closely with emergency
organizations, said it has doubled its capacity for calls to landline
phones and has increased its spectrum allocation to accommodate the surge
in usage.
In addition to the hundreds of thousands of residential and business phone
subscribers without service in the Gulf Coast region, most emergency
organizations have been without telephone service, even after some
government officials have urged the creation of failsafe backup
communications service.
"We always discover the same thing," former FCC chairman Reed F. Hundt told
the Washington Post. "We need a national emergency communications network
and we don't have one."
Satellite phones, although still somewhat expensive, are increasingly
becoming affordable. Iridium, whose phones are typically marketed through
resellers, has seen satellite phones drop from $3,000 to between $1,000 and
$1500. De Castro said usage costs are becoming affordable, too, with prices
as low as $1 to $1.25 a minute. "They're very easy to use," she said,
adding that the Iridium staff at Maryland and its outlying offices have
been working around the clock since the Katrina threat emerged. "We're
typically inundated in the first days of an emergency until the cell phones
are fixed."
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
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