By Peter J. Brown

As Hurricane Katrina approached the U.S. Gulf Coast, she let everyone know that well before a natural disaster occurs, officials need satellite links close at hand. Unfortunately, this lesson was learned the hard way. For months, emergency preparedness officials and satellite industry executives have been aggressively lobbying for more robust communications networks to be in place, before a disaster strikes, not after.

The impact of Hurricane Katrina provided, once again, satellite communications a chance to prove its value to the world when satellite was there to answer the call. "Satellite communications played a critical role during the response to man-made and natural disasters," Satellite Industry Association (SIA) Chairman Tony Trujillo testified last September before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. "When the telephone and broadcast networks went down, satellites remained on the job. Satellites connected emergency personnel and other first responders. Satellites reunited families. Satellites reconnected communities. And satellites enabled the world to witness the devastation of these disasters and also the many acts of heroism," Trujillo stated during the "Public Safety Communications from Sept. 11, 2001, to Katrina: Critical Public Policy Lessons" hearing.

Quick Reaction To A Crisis

Companies quickly responded to meet the needs of emergency responders in the first days after Hurricane Katrina hit the U.S. Gulf Coast in August and after Hurricane Rita made landfall in Texas less than a month later. Satellite telephone providers Globalstar and Iridium fielded thousands of equipment requests, and the number of phones activated by the two companies to support the relief efforts was in the range of 20,000, officials say. To meet demand, Iridium shifted its manufacturing into high gear, working 24 hours, seven days a week to meet demand, while distribution partner Fedex Corp. ensured that Iridium phones reached customers in the field.

Globalstar doubled its capacity to make calls to landline phones, increased its active spectrum allocation via special temporary authorities granted by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and allocated gateway coverage footprints to increase capacity in the affected area to manage the unprecedented surge in users. "Voice service saw almost all of the usage on the first day, but data quickly came up as a key service for response agencies at their communications centers," says Globalstar spokesman John Dark. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) "relies on our Quick Locate Asset Tracking devices to locate all of their heavier assets. They have many thousands of these units. Overall, our current product and service offering closely matched what was needed."

Ottawa-based Mobile Satellite Ventures (MSV) provided expanded services to its existing customers, including the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, the Louisiana Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, FEMA and the American Red Cross. The Mississippi Department of Health and the Federal Aviation Administration also contacted MSV to work with partners in Mexico and Canada to obtain additional terminals. "MSV was able to support the needs of Louisiana and Mississippi with voice and data communications that enabled the relief efforts to begin and allowed outside states and federal agencies to speak directly with the relief coordinators.

Because of the high capacity of our geostationary orbit satellite system, our users, even at peak times, received reliable communications during the Hurricane Katrina relief effort," says Alexander Good, MSV vice chairman and CEO.

Connecticut-based Panamsat Corp. contends that the better the communications, the more effective the rescue and recovery. The company set up its Disaster Recovery Solutions initiative and Emergency Response Team, putting an emphasis on flexibility and on systems that enable Internet protocol connectivity including voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), the Web and Virtual Private Networks. The Emergency Response Team is dispatched from the company’s customer service center in Ellenwood, Ga. In the wake of Katrina, the team worked with On Call Communications to create Spotbytes-equipped mobile command posts on an RV chassis so emergency response personnel had a direct connection to the Internet via a Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) link. These mobile command posts also were outfitted with Quickspot On Demand two-way broadband as well as G2’s iDirect and satellite phone services. Panamsat also sent G2 executives to Mississippi after Katrina, and to Texas and Louisiana in advance of Hurricane Rita. Besides command posts and flyaways, G2 deployed an experimental inflatable antenna, and made contact with the Defense Information Systems Agency, U.S. Northern Command, FEMA, the Homeland Security Department, the American Red Cross and other agencies. G2 also stood by for several teleport operators in and around Houston in advance of Rita.

Other companies such as Overwatch Systems of Richardson, Texas, also were able to lend a hand in a hurry. According to Terry Benson, Overwatch’s senior program manager, the company accelerated the delivery of its flyaway, Quad-band satellite terminal to Naval Station Pascagoula, Miss., in support of the Naval Reserve Distributive Common Ground Station Navy Unit Two.

This satellite communications system, originally destined to support base operations, provided dual-band operations in a single feed, operating either in C-/Ku-band or X-/Ka- band simultaneously. The terminal allows the operator to adjust the system’s capability to work with available satellite resources within the region of operations. "External land- line [wide-area network] connectivity that provided access to the command/control infrastructure was disrupted as a result of the hurricane," says Benson. "… As a small company, we were able to rapidly respond to the request for early delivery of the system to a remote location. The system was on site within 72 hours of the request to field, despite the lack of transportation and shipping options," he says. "As it was an early delivery of the system, satellite certifications were still pending when we packed up the trailer to leave. Intelsat certification was achieved by day two after arrival. Formal [Defense Satellite Communications System] certification process has been initiated, which will provide access to X- and Ka- military bands for future deployments."

Restoring Communications Across Wide Areas

Once the needs of emergency responders were met, satellite companies began the work of restoring communications across the regions well before terrestrial systems were put back in place. Maryland-based Hughes Network Systems (HNS) LLC set up a task force to respond to the enormous amount of requests for emergency Direcway deployments, and sent teams to enterprise customers to get them back online as soon as possible. Direcway-specific requests came from charitable organizations, government agencies, private industry, schools and others, according to HNS.

Virginia-based Spacenet dispatched special rapid-response teams to help major oil companies, retailers and freight companies quickly restore communications, according to Spacenet officials. Spacenet also opened a special toll-free hotline to coordinate expedited disaster recovery installation and maintenance efforts and waived a number of normal enterprise business process requirements. According to Spacenet, the company allowed its customers to install sites with no-term contracts on a purchase order basis to enable its customers to get up and running more quickly.

Demand for usage-based VSAT services surged at Spacenet as companies scrambled to activate their backup and business continuity plans. In fact, a number of companies wanted VSATs installed right away to tide them over until other connectivity was restored, but many of them have kept the dishes and the services as an insurance policy against future problems. Likewise, a number of Starband broadband Internet systems were donated to aid organizations working in the area. In addition, local Starband dealers in the area worked with organizations large and small to help meet local needs.

Better Preparations Are Needed

While FEMA, perhaps the largest user of satellite technology in the U.S. federal government outside of NOAA and the Pentagon, was criticized for its overall response to Hurricane Katrina, FEMA senior disaster operations personnel say their ample stock of satellite communications gear met all the agency’s requirements in terms of deployment and activation during these relief operations. The agency encountered no snags or operational deficiencies during its hurricane response efforts. Other than an ongoing interdepartmental planning effort intended to bring all satellite resources at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, including those controlled by FEMA, under a single umbrella organization, no changes to FEMA satellite operations are deemed necessary, the officials say.

Even so, satellite communications technology would have been even more impressive if networks had been in place prior to the disaster instead of being rushed in after the event, Trujillo said. "Although the performance of satellite systems was impressive, their use has often been limited by a lack of preparation. Had satellite systems been more effectively integrated into our emergency communications network, many of the communications problems that occurred in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi recently and New York City after 9/11 would have been substantially mitigated."

In fact, many satellite services companies have stood up and echoed Trujillo’s statements. "In a digital world it is most important to maintain backbone integrity for continuity of local and regional communications when disasters strike," says Gerhard Bommas, CTO at ND SatCom. "Crisis management personnel cannot afford to have communication interruptions with local relief agencies, hospitals or other disaster recovery units."

In a recent U.S. Congressional hearing, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said that Katrina exposed serious problems with the U.S. emergency communications network. "If we learned anything from Hurricane Katrina, it is that we cannot rely solely on terrestrial communications." Martin says the FCC intends to establish a public safety/homeland security bureau to plan and oversee all public safety and national security activities within the FCC. The satellite industry seems to universally support this initiative, but signals that other response enhancements need to take place as well.

Warren Brown, vice president of marketing at Virginia-based iDirect Technologies, says the government needs to look at both ends of the satellite network. If there is a problem at either the hub or remote side, the entire solution is not operational. "At the teleport side, the government should have a domestic satellite footprint ready to go. It should also be able to support multiple networks utilizing the best RF chain for different situations or locations," says Brown. "For example, FEMA could deploy multiple antennas at a secure location supporting several networks that can span multiple continents, link to different satellites, and utilize C-, Ka-, Ku-, or even X-bands whenever or wherever they need it. On the remote site, the government should set up units with all the necessary equipment ready to respond. These units should have commissioned satellite routers, and any end user equipment necessary to manage all their communications needs," he says.

Satellite companies were prepared for the post-disaster efforts, even if their customers were not. Dave Hershberg, CEO at Long Island, N.Y.-based Globecomm Systems Inc., says Katrina set in motion a series of events and activities that his organization has been designing, documenting and preparing for many months prior to the arrival of hurricane season in the United States. Globecomm Systems partners with Agility Recovery Solutions to provide disaster management and recovery services to a number of companies across North America using pre-positioned mobile units as well as on-demand services to support disaster recovery activities. After Katrina struck, Globecomm and Agility rolled out a complete portable communications facility to transmit voice and IP traffic via satellite and also provided call center services.

"Our subsidiary Globecomm Network Services, has designed and deployed many VSAT terminals for various enterprise customers," says Hershberg. "These help standardize our services as well as our thorough supply chain management and logistics coordination. We were able to immediately deploy, install and commission more than 30 terminals into the area, and most were installed within 72 hours of notification. We also supported FEMA activities using government terminals for cellular and data services via VSAT, through our hub at the Globecomm Long Island International Teleport." Besides FEMA, other government agencies were supplied with cellular backhaul services to replace terrestrial networks that were destroyed. Support for their mobile satellite operations also were provided. Hershberg has identified organizational or structural adjustments that might help the U.S. government do a better job in terms of coordinating and deploying available satellite resources and manpower. "I think it is the same old story: No money is available for preparedness, but always after disaster strikes. The government should contract for space segment and to have highly portable terminals propositioned with associated teleports to work with," Hershberg says. "These services should be broadband so that real-time images can be relayed to management along with data and voice. I think they are starting to do this now, based on the sheer number of people affected by hurricanes. Coordinating assistance to many states proved to be a real problem. Different types of help ranging from medical services and food supply to power restoration, to name few, coming from all over the United States have to be managed from many different perspectives such as transportation, licensing, law enforcement, deployment where needed, credential verification etc. These things require a network and database structure that can only be reliably supplied by satellite," he says.

Improvements can also be made at other levels of government. The Global VSAT Forum (GVF) met with the International Association of Emergency Managers, a non-profit educational organization, following the hurricane relief efforts to promote satellite communications, says David Hartshorn, secretary general of the GVF. Emergency manager "is a relatively new profession with different levels of familiarity with satellite," he says. "It’s not going to be easy for the industry, because the managers don’t usually control the money. It takes five to 24 months to convince them how it makes sense and design a system. The next step is that they tell the purse guys. The process then works its way back down."

Caprock Communications built and deployed dozens of muti-user satellite systems that included telephone, fax, real-time video and broadband Internet access services. These self-contained packages were available as either a stationary kit, a mobile unit or as a stabilized system fro maritime and offshore customers. "Last year, when Florida was ravaged by three storms during the same hurricane season, we realized that we needed to put a series of disaster recovery plans in place," says Errol Olivier, president and COO of Caprock. "For this year’s efforts, we deployed these satellite systems at a rate of about a dozen a day, as well as providing much larger satellite-based circuits on a customized basis."

Developing Even Better Systems

Satellite equipment providers and operators are also developing improved systems that promise to work even more efficiently the next time the government and private organizations need help, officials say. iDirect has teamed up with Skyport International to equip National Guard Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear or High Yield Explosive Enhanced Response Force Package teams with a satellite-based emergency response communications system which interconnects seamlessly with the Guardnet terrestrial network.

Besides encrypted real-time traffic management applications such as video and high-speed data, this solution offers VoIP via AVL Tracstar auto acquisition antennas. Multiple virtual local area networks also can be supported over a single link with data rates of more than 4 megabits per second.

MSV executives say its planned next-generation system, which combines a terrestrial wireless network with a satellite network, is underway. The FCC authorized MSV last May to launch and operate a next generation satellite at 101 degrees West to provide its wireless communications network, including the use of terrestrial repeaters. "Our new integrated handsets will be small, lightweight and affordable comparable to the cellular handsets that people use on a daily basis," Good says. "Our next-generation service will be just as useful as a police radio or cell phone for daily use but will switch automatically to the satellite when the local network is destroyed or blocked. In addition, the satellite portion of the network will provide ubiquitous coverage, particularly in rural areas, where a reliable terrestrial infrastructure does not exist."

Globalstar developed its Globalstar Emergency Management Communications System, or GEMCOMS system, in time for the response to Rita, Dark says. "We saw the need for first responders to have easy access to satellite communications in-building, but in a mobile way." GEMCOMS uses picocell technology, a base station designed to serve a small area, to connect multiple fixed phones to a miniaturized cellular switch, enabling first responders and emergency management personnel to reach anyone accessible on the public telephone network via standard cell phones, wired phones and the Globalstar network. Calls within an approximate half-mile radius are also possible via GEMCOMS.

As part of its overall effort to refine emergency communications for future efforts, Iridium has completed beta testing of its group call push-to-talk services. This service enables multiple users to cluster their communications via Iridium phones into designated command and control, logistics and other critical task-specific assignments, so that time sensitive information flows more efficiently between agencies and organizations. "First responders need to have mobile satellite communications equipment pre-positioned so they’re prepared before events such as Katrina occur, and they need to be adequately trained to use mobile satellite communications equipment so they are ready to move quickly toward disaster response," Iridium spokesperson Liz DeCastro says. "Satellite communication services will continue to play a critical role in homeland security/public safety efforts."

The Message Is Clear

In 2005, the United States was dealt a severe blow by a series of natural disasters. Command, control communications and coordination via satellite are what provided the glue to the enormous relief effort that unfolded in the process. This was a team effort and everyone performed exceedingly well under enormous pressure. Lives were lost and lessons learned. The next time a disaster strikes, satellite will again be ready to meet user needs, and there will be more satellite gear waiting in the wings. What still is needed, however, is a paradigm shift from reactionary to prepositioned and prepared. Time will tell if national and local governments have indeed learned anything from these disasters. If so, perhaps now they will implement satellite-enhanced communications infrastructures that can better withstand whatever comes their way.

Peter Brown Is Via Satellite’s senior Multimedia and Homeland Security editor.