By Peter J. Brown

By the time this goes to print, U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Michael Chertoff should have the results of his comprehensive departmental review in hand. So, where will the DHS place satellite technology in this emerging grand scheme to drastically overhaul and improve interdepartmental efficiency and operational coordination? Probably way down at the bottom of the priority list–again.

Or perhaps not. So maybe we should view this as an opportunity that we have to reach out and grab with gusto. After all, timing is everything, and while it is unlikely that Chertoff has ever glanced at Via Satellite, we cannot let that stop us.

For starters, let us remind the Secretary that he has a lot of satellite gear stashed away at DHS, and for good reason. The National Response Plan, issued in December, is sitting on my desk. The plan is 2 inches thick, and yet only 12 pages–Emergency Support Function No. 2-Communications Annex, which is a supplement to the National Telecommunications Support Plan–seems to cover satellite-related areas. The National Communications System (NCS), now under Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection, serves as ESF No. 2 coordinator. We want to be supportive and suggest that all these dishes constitute a seamless solution, and that a single entity is out there making sure all the pieces fit together. We want to say everything is OK and in place, but we are not quite sure.

For this and other reasons, we urged DHS to create an Office of Emergency Satellite Communications (OESC) roughly two years ago. Now, the satellite resources, assets and procurement strategies of 22 different federal agencies are under one roof at DHS. So, it makes sense that somewhere within DHS, a more formal satellite coordination and planning entity should emerge. We envision OESC as having a distinct state and local outreach and training mission which gives it a focus well beyond the scope of either NCS or the National Coordinating Center for Telecommunications (NCC).

Could OESC play a much greater role in terms of making military surplus satellite communications gear available to the states as well? We raised that issue months ago–to no avail.

We also renew our campaign to pitch Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) technology to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). DBS technology should be integrated into the operations of both the new Office of Terrorism Preparedness and Emergency Response and the Health Alert Network, specifically. The purchase and installation of DBS receivers at all rural and urban health centers makes good sense. The CDC would benefit from existing low cost, off-the-shelf DBS set-top box technology, and at the same time, by piggybacking on the existing terrestrial backhaul network that the two DBS providers already have put in place , a broadcast-quality signal from either Atlanta or Washington, D.C. could be beamed instantly to all health centers via the existing uplink facilities. All this could be done quite easily with existing video networking capabilities.

Frankly, we are a bit puzzled as to why the critical communications activities of Health and Human Services/CDC/U.S. Public Health Service do not appear anywhere in the support agency section of ESF No. 2, the communications section of the new National Response Plan, given the threat of weapons of mass destruction.

In the comprehensive National Defense University Center for Technology and National Security Policy report that looked at the process of managing the multiple decisions that make up a national strategy for biodefense, nothing at all was said about satellite technology. One of the authors, Kimberly Thompson, associate professor of Risk Analysis and Decision Science at the Harvard School of Public Health, confirmed this during a quick phone interview at the time the report was released in June.

Mr. Chertoff, we just want to remind you that the role of satellite technology is considerably bigger than most people imagine. We do not expect you to become an expert, just do yourself a favor once in a while and look up. You may not see much, but realize that much is there.

You might want to think about exactly where satellite technology fits into the disaster recovery planning at DHS and inside the Infrastructure Transformation Office in particular. The report, issued in May by Richard Skinner, acting inspector general at DHS, on the disaster recovery planning at the department says nothing about the role of satellite in terms of DHS continuity of operations, among other things.

In early June, Satellite Industry Association President David Cavossa informed us that because the industry has been so focused on satellite-related activities at the Department of Defense, little energy was being applied to DHS-related matters.

Finally, we do not want to distort the role of satellite technology either in this instance, nor lose sight of the need for satellite to reside as just one component in an advanced, hybrid-wireless emergency communications system. We like what we see emerging in the National Guard with the wide-area network concept known as GuardNet and the Joint Continental United States Communication Support Environment. Perhaps for the next Joint User Interoperable Communications Exercise, DHS can inject a most unwanted variable. Take out half of the operational cadre on the satellite operations side as if an epidemic is raging and lots of people with critical roles to play are getting too sick to participate. See what happens then. Just an idea.

Peter Brown is Via Satellite’s senior Multimedia & Homeland Security editor.