With regular phone and cellular service knocked out in Katrina’s wake — the New Orleans mayor’s office had to cobble together an Internet phone link with the outside world — first responders were simply unable to share essential information.

Federal emergency management officials claim they didn’t know for days about thousands of people camped out, thirsty and hungry, at the New Orleans convention center (although they could have watched television or read the paper).

Rescuers in helicopters couldn’t talk to crews patrolling in boats. National guard commanders in Mississippi had to use runners to relay orders. It was not until the fourth day that firefighters, police and emergency personnel in New Orleans were able to communicate with each other, albeit on only one channel.

The U.S. lacks unified emergency radio system, complain some. New Orleans bought an M/A-Com system while the Louisiana State Police bought a statewide system from Motorola four years later. The two systems are not interoperable. But the expensive, highly secure, hard to find interoperable Safecom radios can’t send photos, data or video.

On Tuesday, Democrats on Capital Hill urged Congress to devote $5 billion a year to upgrading communications equipment for the nation’s first-responders. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said the hurricane exposed a “totally failed communication system.”

The public service bands are available now. Senator John McCain says his SAVE LIVES bill, S. 1268 is essential to providing police, fire and emergency personnel the tools to communicate with one another. They can’t use their allocated 24Mhz at 700 until broadcasters move their collective butts off the property.

Some advocate creating a national 700 Mhz wireless data network — with its own dedicated emergency frequencies. Police, firefighters and all other responders could plug into immediately after a catastrophe. Former FCC commissioner Reed Hundt has lobbied for such a network.

But the much-criticized federal response to Katrina shows that even the latest equipment is no guarantee of smooth communications, said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org.

“They had all the radios in the world. They had complete interoperability,” Pike said of federal emergency officials. “That was not a hardware problem. That was a people and procedure problem.”

The Plan Each community on the West Coast of the United States, it seems to me, ought to have emergency broadband wireless. For the people. A $5K, 2-way V-Sat terminal, with a generator and solar panels would provide communications backup. Solar panels, like Sanyo’s 200 watt panels can charge deep cycle batteries though charge controllers. A $20K, WiMax tower provides community broadband. Normally it would use Telco backhaul for the internet connection and provide relay links to nearby towers. They could also feed 3-4 Wireless Kiosks around the community. A dozen $200 access points with built-in wireless backhaul, like those available from Linksys, D-Link and NETGEAR, could provide mobile WiFi with voice, data and video services. They might be carried by police and fire vehicles, motorcycles or bikes and run on batteries. Perhaps a budget of $50,000-$300,000 could provide commodity broadband wireless infrastructure for a small town. Licensed WiMax should get 3-5 miles NLOS. Unlicensed 5.8GHz might get 1-3 miles NLOS or 20 miles in a straight shot. Don’t wait for FEMA. Just do it. Alvarion’s BreezeMax line is shipping WiMax-ready clients while Airspan’s EasyST client includes a WiMax backbone with built-in WiFi for local access. D-Link’s EV-DO access point and NETGEAR’s hotspot with Flarion backhaul are ready to go. 900 Mhz Gear works, too. A $200 box with combined VoIP and WiFi for $40/month is a business. An independent ISP could run it. A $5K Wireless Kiosk might make money, too. Outdoor, advertiser-sponsored Kiosks would also house Tsunami alert info and a netcam. A couple of old 12 volt truck batteries could run it for a week in case of emergency with wireless backhaul to the tower. LinksysInfo.org reviews ALL the latest (free) firmware software for creating automatic, redirect “splash” pages on ordinary, $60 Linksys access points. Turning hopeless victims into smart mobs is the goal of empowerment software like JotSpot and Wiki software. YOUR life, YOUR business and YOUR community are on the line.

Posted by Sam Churchill on Tuesday, September 13th, 2005 at 8:34 am.