Subscribe to WT Daily
Renew WT Insider
Join WT Insider
The Authority for Government Contractors and Partners
Years of effort and investment lead to NCI's biggest win
Leidos completes 1901 Group deal
2020 contracts
Robert Lohfeld
Bill Scheessele
Stan Soloway
Business Beat
Intelligence Resources
Click here to receive the Washington Technology Daily e-Newsletter for FREE!
Ready for disaster
Command center technologies on call for the next emergency
By Doug Beizer
Rescue workers rely on mobile communications to respond to disasters.
Morey Milbradt
As the storm surge began to spill over and lay waste to New Orleans' levees, the flood waters wiped out much of the city's communications systems that the wind and rain hadn't destroyed.
Mississippi's Gulf Coast didn't fair any better. But despite the devastation, a little more than a week after the storm, Steve Anspach had eight phone lines ready to go within 20 minutes of getting to a K-Mart parking lot in battered Bay St. Louis, Miss.
"I left for Mississippi with about four hours notice, and had the phone lines up and operational for more than five days," said Anspach, vice president of technology and engineering for TeleCommunication Systems, Annapolis, Md., which makes satellite communications products.
Improving communications in a disaster zone is one of the cornerstones of an effort to avoid the mistakes of Hurricane Katrina.
"Ensure situational awareness by establishing rapid deployable communications" is one of the recommendations in a White House report on how to strengthen the federal response to disasters.
While the chain-of-command politics will be debated for some time, experts said the technology exists now to quickly collect and send information back to a central command.
Making the connection
Whether it's voice, video or data that needs to be relayed to a central command center, the key need is establishing a connection with the outside world. In most cases, that means a satellite link to the public Internet or another IP-based network.
Duluth, Ga.-based DataPath Inc. supplies Earth terminal satellite systems for military, civilian and commercial customers. The DataPath 3000, for example, is a trailer-based terminal that provides first responders with secure communications at sites that can be reached with a vehicle. It can be customized to support multiple communications bands.
For a more remote area, the company has a satellite terminal that can be carried in a Humvee. The DataPath ET 2000 Portable weighs less than 600 pounds and comes in six cases. It can be assembled in less than an hour.
An even more portable solution is TeleCommunication Systems' SwiftLink DVM-90. The satellite terminal can be set up in 20 minutes, is software-driven and is shipped in two carry-on sized containers. Its IP-data rates are adjustable from 64 Kb/s to 2.4 Mb/s.
"It gives the user the ability of literally going anywhere in the world at any time, with absolutely no notice, and immediately upon getting on the ground establishing a communications channel back to their enterprise, home station or just to the general public Internet," Anspach said.
The entire package weights about 80 pounds and is transported in two backpacks.
"You basically unpack the system, connect three cables, apply power to it, push a button and it deploys," Anspach said. "It finds the satellite you're going to operate on, it will acquire it, and it will eventually lock on it."
Once a communications connection is made, first responders need access to make phone calls, conduct videoconferences and send data, among other things.
Around the beginning of the Iraq war, Cisco Systems Inc. and CACI International Inc. of Arlington, Va., began developing a mobile communications kit to fill that need, said Bob Browning, a senior manager at Cisco for tactical operations support.
NetHope, a philanthropic initiative involving several international, non-governmental organizations that apply information and communication technologies to humanitarian causes, heard about the project and funded the construction of six tactical communications kits.
"We were in the process of finishing those kits when the tsunami hit Indonesia and India. We literally rushed them into production and gave them to organizations such as Save the Children and World Vision," Browning said. "They took them into the tsunami area and used them for initial and ongoing communications until the infrastructure started coming back up."
The unit includes routing, switching, security, IP telephone and fax and secure phone capability. The IP phone can also communicate with a radio that lets disparate radio systems to talk to each other.
It has a 16-port Ethernet switch module for wired and wireless capability.
"It looks like a regular large suitcase," Browning said. "It's airline checkable and weighs a little less than 70 pounds."
The kit has its own power supply, and it runs off 110 or 220 AC volts, 50 to 60Hz, or 12 or 20 DC volts.
"In the case of the folks that took it to Sri Lanka, they actually hooked it right to battery terminals and ran it off of that," Browning said.
When the unit is on, about 35 people can use it to connect laptops, IP phones and videoconferencing equipment, depending on the bandwidth available.
Once communications links are established, organizing users quickly can become difficult. Engineers might be e-mailing photos of damaged infrastructures, while medical workers are using a VoIP phone to request medical supplies.
Pacific Star Communications Inc., Portland, Ore., has built a communications appliance that delivers mobile voice and data wireless LAN, streaming video and digital private branch exchange capabilities in an encrypted environment. The PacStar 5500 is housed in a small, portable, field hardened case.
And to assist with quickly deploying a team to a remote location, it comes with management software aimed to simplify the process for things such as sending systems alerts to specified administrators or adding new users.
"This would replace a VoIP phone system, firewall and encryption capabilities and the switching and routing capabilities," said PacStar CEO Robert Frisbee. "If you were in the field, and you had those devices and wanted to add a user, you'd have to go into a number of those devices and add users."
With PacStar's software, if you want to add a user, a wizard is used to simplify the process. "The goal is to eliminate the need for IT staff in the field and enable very rapid, advanced communications capability," Frisbee said.
To use the unit, first responders have to load the PacStar software on their portable computers.
"If a National Guard unit ended up at a New Orleans parish, they would hand out the discs with the PacStar software to everyone with a wireless laptop," Frisbee said. "Once it's installed, the wireless laptops are immediately part of the system. You can provide them with a USB phone, and then it's a phone system."
Users can be managed in a hierarchical manner, so, for example, a colonel calling a command center in Washington would get the bandwidth necessary to do that over a lesser important call or data transfer.
"This becomes their communications capability," Frisbee said. "And it becomes both the local communications capability and a link back to a secured Internet site and to headquarters."
Staff Writer Doug Beizer can be reached at dbeizer@postnewsweektech.com.
Doug Beizer is a staff writer for Washington Technology.
Please post your comments here. Comments are moderated, so they may not appear immediately after submitting. We will not post comments that we consider abusive or off-topic.
Name: (Optional) Email: (Optional) Location: (Optional)
Washington Technology FCW GCN Defense Systems
What is your e-mail address?
My e-mail address is:
I don't have a password. (Sign up now!)
I have a password
Washington Technology Daily
Click to Select One United States Afghanistan Åland Islands Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antarctica Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia, Plurinational State of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Bouvet Island Brazil British Indian Ocean Territory Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde (Cabo Verde) Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia Comoros Congo Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Cook Islands Costa Rica Côte d'Ivoire Croatia Cuba Curaçao Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guam Guatemala Guernsey Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Heard Island and McDonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq Ireland Isle of Man Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jersey Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macao Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Mexico Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway Oman Pakistan Palau Palestinian Territory, Occupied Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Pitcairn Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Réunion Romania Russian Federation Rwanda Saint Barthélemy Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Martin (French part) Saint Pierre and Miquelon Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Sint Maarten (Dutch part) Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Svalbard and Jan Mayen Eswatini (Swaziland) Sweden Switzerland Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand Timor-Leste Togo Tokelau Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States Minor Outlying Islands Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam Virgin Islands, British Virgin Islands, U.S. Wallis and Futuna Western Sahara Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe
Terms and Privacy Policy consent
Yes, I agree No, I don't agree
Please select your company's main business focus.
Click to Select One Systems Integration VAR (Value Added Reseller) Systems/Software Dvlpment Distribution/Aggregation Aerospace/Defense Contrctr Professional/Engin Servics Other Government Contractr Other
Please select your primary job function.
Click to Select One Sr Exec/Corp Mgt Program/Project Mgt Technical Management Sys Analyst/Solns Arch/Eng Mgt Procure/Capture Mgt BizDev/Sales/Team Mgt Other
I agree to this site's Privacy Policy.
WT Insider
1105 Media, Inc.
8251 Greensboro Drive, Suite 510
McLean, VA 22102 703-876-5100 Insider Customer Service 800-353-9118 or email
© 1105 Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.