Government+ RRV and aerostat balloon. Photo: SES.

During a Mountain View, California, forum this week organized by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), SES showcased some of its solutions geared toward humanitarian and disaster relief efforts. The company’s solutions are designed to help restore essential communication links, ensuring immediate coverage via capacity reserved for relief efforts and support for multiple end-to-end humanitarian services.

The company highlighted Emergency.lu, a multi-layer platform that includes a portable rapid deployment kit delivering connectivity via SES satellites to support first responders’ efforts. A Public-Private Partnership (PPP) between the Luxembourg government and three Luxembourg-based companies (SES, HITEC Luxembourg and Luxembourg Air Ambulance), and in collaboration with the World Food Programme (WFP), Emergency Telecommunications Cluster and Ericsson Response, support the platform. In past years, it has been deployed in emergency situations around the world, including Haiti, Nepal and Vanuatu, and earlier in Mali, the Philippines, South Sudan, Venezuela and Ebola-affected countries in West Africa.

SES also unveiled its new satcom-enabled solution, Government+ Rapid Response Vehicle (RRV). Using a combination of Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) and Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellite connectivity, RRV can enable wireless internet access for refugee camps and communities, reinforce downed public infrastructure, and provide Internet Protocol (IP) backhaul for mobile networks and long-term connectivity for agencies on the ground. High-definition video conferencing, streaming, Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) backhaul, cloud-based services and high-speed broadband in locations where infrastructure is non-existent or destroyed are only a few of the applications the RRV can provide.

The plug-and-play modular RRV solution can integrate and deploy an array of communications technologies and devices aboard its mobile vehicle, including the emergency.lu disaster recovery platform, SES Government+ persistent surveillance aerostat or Satmed telemedicine service. The RRV is equipped with wireless capabilities, including Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) Software-Defined radio (SDR) technology that provides humanitarian aid teams with an expansive mesh type, frequency programmable, mobile communications platform that supports private 3G and 4G LTE networks.