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Communications Infrastructure No Match for Katrina
jfourier writes "In this age of cheap commoditized consumer electronics and advanced mobile technology, why can't all the people of a city make contact during an emergency? Cell phone circuits filled up during 9/11 attacks and in the wake of hurricane Katrina very few victims can make contact with their families, despite the fact that they have all those mobile phones. The Red Cross is looking to deploy satellite equipment to restore communications in affected areas." From the article: "Katrina made landfall in Louisiana early this morning with sustained winds of 145 mph, but veered just enough to the east to spare New Orleans a direct blow. Even so, flooding, power outages and heavy damage to structures were reported throughout the region.
The Red Cross tomorrow expects to begin deploying a host of systems it will need, including satellite telephones, portable satellite dishes, specially equipped communications trucks, high- and low-band radio systems, and generator-powered wireless computer networks, said Jason Wiltrout, a Red Cross network engineer. "
Wouldn't satellite signals be affected by rain and wind?
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Do I even need to say it?
Ever since the midwest blackout I've been meaning to get an operator's license... for 2m if nothing else.
https://www.redcross.org/donate/donation-form.asp
1-800-HELP-NOW
Beat out messages on drums!
Of course the system failed. The cities have flooded, there is no power in much of the area, and a good number of towers and other infrastructure has been damaged.
The winds reached 140+ miles per hour. The uplands received 5+ inches of rain in 24 hours.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Let me point out that this is one of those times when battery operated amateur radio provides one of the best ways to get messages in and out of an affected area. In fact, this story at the ARRL has some information on how hams are helping in the recovery effort.
In this age of cheap commoditized consumer electronics and advanced mobile technology, why can't all the people of a city make contact during an emergency?
That is the dumbest question I have ever seen on Slashdot.
Sure, cell PHONES are cheap, but have you priced the towers and the infrastructure that SUPPORTS the phone? Plus, even though your cell phone has a battery, the batteries at the cellular provider won't last long when the entire frickin' CITY is without power.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
I remember a story some time ago about a plan to deploy blimps for cell and wi-fi service. I wonder if that plan might be viable now? They could fly away for the storm then fly back shortly afterwards.
WTF do people expect? Millions of people displaced and each having at least one relative and likely several in other parts of the world trying to reach them. This is to be expected. Why should a network outage and phone difficulties be news in such a catastrophy?
I live in Charlotte, NC, and it's often difficult to place a cell phone call during rush hour traffic here. If we had a major disaster, no doubt the same thing would happen to us. The cell phone networks obviously were only designed to support a small fraction of the total number of cell phone users in the area at any given time.
-Crow T. Trollbot
who's evacuated out of state and has a cell phone with long distance service, but people are having problems calling TO him. Presumably because the call is still trying to get to New Orleans to figure out where to forward his phone call.
http://www.arrl.org/
Amateur Radio Volunteers Involved in Katrina Recovery (Aug 30, 2005) -- Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) volunteers in Louisiana are engaged in the Hurricane Katrina recovery effort, and more are waiting in the wings to help as soon as they can enter storm-ravaged zones. Winds and flooding from the huge storm wreaked havoc in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama after Katrina came ashore early Monday, August 29. Louisiana ARES Section Emergency Coordinator Gary Stratton, K5GLS, told ARRL that some 250 ARES members have been working with the Red Cross and the state's Office of Homeland Security Emergency Preparedness. Much of the affected areas remain flooded and dangerous, however. As a result, state officials have not allowed emergency or other units to enter the flooded zones, and there is still no communication with many coastal areas.
Technology can certainly help us in times of need. The Mayor of New Orleans was able to order an evacuation, through the great telecommunication and media infrastructures that we have, people were able to be warned, which probably saved thousands of lives. I say this, because when natural disasters like this hit third world countries, there are many, many, many more deaths. So our communications infrastructure and other technologies DO HELP. Of course, we have had television and radio and the like for a while, an evacuation and warning like this would have been possible probably even 40 years ago. This catagory of technology would also include things like interstate highways, helicopters, boats, and the like, which help rescue operations get where they are needed. Another development we have that helps is a highly organized and functional government. George Bush can immediately grant disaster funding to these states and the rescue operations get moving. Without government direction and organization, it would take whatever volunteer goodwill organizations that go down there a lot longer to coordinate their efforts, and would be much less effective. It is true that the cell phones stop working when the power is cut to the tower, but the same is true for regular phones. But, the amazing thing is, to restore phone service we can fly a couple satellites, which is a lot easier than waiting for the water to recede and rebuild all the phone lines. So technology is helping in this case as well. A disaster like this does show us how powerful nature is, and that sometimes there is nothing we can do to stop a disaster, but we can do our best to minimize the tragedy.
It seems like Verizon, Sprint or someone could make a boatload of money from opportunities like this. They could have a few mobile cell towers that run from generators. When a tornado, hurricane, wind storms, or whatever hit, they truck those towers in as temporary replacements. The local government will appreciate it. The local cell phone users will appreciate it. The people not on their plan will make them a bundle in roaming fees!
They could store them centrally inthe country. Since they usually have a large warning, they could get them nearby the pending storm. Right after the storm clears, instant tower.
3. Profit
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
"In this hypothetical storm scenario, it is estimated that it would take nine weeks to pump the water out of the city, and only then could assessments begin to determine what buildings were habitable or salvageable. Sewer, water, and the extensive forced drainage pumping systems would be damaged. National authorities would be scrambling to build tent cities to house the hundreds of thousands of refugees unable to return to their homes and without other relocation options."
Crow T. Trollbot
The networks are not designed for theoretical maximum capacity, they are designed for average peak observed capacity. If there are 1 million cell phones in use and only 10-20% of them are actively transmitting at a time during normal use, why shell out for 5 times as much infrastructure as is needed to support that level of use? A catastrophe like Katrina or 9/11 only happens once every few years; the rest of the time the excess capacity would only be draining resources - not just from the corporate bottom line, but from maintaining the 10-20% of the equipment that's actually used by subscribers.
and why I prefer the northeast. 0 serious earthquakes, 0 landslides, 0 hurricanes, 0 tornados (mostly anyway)
There just aren't much of any natural phenomenon that you can't adequately prepare for in advance up there.
Sadly I'm in DC these days...the home of some the most obscene unnatural disasters, our very own House and Senate...ugh
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Yeah, just those annoying blackouts and riots, eh? :)
One of the city levees has been leaking and without power they estimate the homes of hundreds of thousands will be flooded. Without power there's also the lack of pumps running. Much of the city is 6 ft below the level of the Misssissippi River.
This is pretty much your worst case scenario in the Gulf Coast happening. Nice weather now, but people won't even be allowed back to some neighborhoods for at least one week. Others are still being evacuated, by boat, as flood waters rise.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Wind does not affect satellite signals. It effects the dishes. Rain does attenuate the signal however. Regardless, the storm will have blown over by the time the Red Cross gets the equipment setup. All and all this was not a well thought out post: 1. Capacity : Yes, the cell companies could build out the capacity to support everyone calling at once but you don't want to foot the bill. Every once in a while you need to speed to pass some one, you don't buy a porsche do you? Why? Because most of us justify it, much less afford it. 2. Robustness : Lets see if you house stands up to 20 feet of water and 145 mph winds. I'm certain it won't... why not... because you don't want to pay for it. Cell phones are not a public service, they are a commodity and are priced and scaled accordingly. I'm sure the cell phone companies would be more than happy to accomodate you if you'll sign the 10 year $250/month service contract.
That's assuming that you're IP provider still has active data connections, the wind hasn't knocked over the cables you're relying on, and any number of things. I swear, a lot of you need to go to one RACES meeting and realize what emergency communications is really like. You can't rely on the base infrastructure to be in place below you in an emergency.
ATTN HAM RADIO OPERATORS:
After watching all of the major news outlets they are all mentioning that communications in and out of the city of New Orleans is practically nullified.
Tens of thousands (if not a hundred thousand) or more are trapped in the city following hurricane Katrina. This problem is worsened by the fact that after this cyclone, the city is flooded and the waters are RISING, not receding! This is an urgent situation and needs immediate attention!
Because of the need of hundreds of search and rescue missions, and the lack of ability of communications infrastructure to operate, assuming it is still existent at all, I would call FOR EVERY AVAILABLE HAM RADIO OPERATOR TO ATTEMPT TO GIVE THEIR ASSISTANCE TO THIS AREA!
Well-prepared self-sufficient mobile ham radio operators would make a difference in saving lives and passing 'life and limb' traffic in and out of the disaster area. I would like to propose hams descend on the city and surrounding areas to provide a temporary communications infrastructure until such time that officials are able to provide this on their own.
KG4JYD
Matt Collins
Nashville, TN
Libertas in infinitum
a dry place to sleep is the real need. Which is why bringing in communications equipment is a good idea. The sooner that victims can arange to be somewhere other than a shelter (by calling family, finding out of town shelters, etc.), the sooner you will have an extra bed for someone who doesn't have that option. Maybe now that the power is down, all that broadband-over-power-lines will be down so the ham radio operators can help with the truly urgent info. Well, not to flame, but if you had a child that had just moved into the dorm at UNO, and you didn't know if they were alive or not, your definition of "urgent info" might change a bit. This is not an either/or circumstance, bringing in a satalite phone or 2 is not going to cause the survivors to start keeling over. I am sure if it were the choice between a life and a phone, the red cross would choose the life.
RF isn't a great answer for EVERYONE to chat up with their friends and family.
..... That traffic is secondary to priority and emergency traffic for the served agencies (FEMA, Red Cross, Salvation Army, etc), until the land line and other services are restored.
However, RF - as implimented by Amateur Radio Emergency Services (ARES) and the National Traffic System (NTS) can provide health and welfare traffic ie. I'm alive in 'selter location' with
73 (best regards).
Peter AI6PG
During this disaster Amateur radio operators (almost always the first communications up and running) have been of significant assistence.
:-/
BPL will make amateur radio effectivly unusable if it is implemented widely.
But but but... I hear you saying... BPL won't be creating interference when the power is down!
What people forget is that amateur radio operators use thier radios between disasters, including practice disaster scenarios.
If BPL becomes widespread then they (we) will be significantly disadvantaged and it will start driving amateurs away from this hobby (this hobby which has so many community benifits).
This can already be seen with the restrictions on antennas (covenants etc) that are becomming more and more common.
If this trend continues we might not be there next time we are needed
In NYC after the 9/11/2001 planebombs blew up the World Trade Center, including the vast telecom infrastructure centered in 7 World Trade, phone service was crippled. But for the city government, that lasted only a couple of days. The City's IT department ("DoITT") took an in-house VoIP experiment, and prematurely deployed it to over 50,000 of the City government's 75,000 desk phones. They actually worked a few blocks from the smoke-choked Ground Zero to install telecom servers over existing TCP/IP LANs. Which gave not only dialtone, but the conferencing, connectivity and security demanded by that unprecedented crisis. The next several weeks saw the high performance of that emergency replacement, coping with the vast weight of the telecom organizing the city's recovery from the catastrophe.
New Orleans ain't New York City. I lived there, too, and I know it's hardly "Silicon Alley": It's Carbon Swamp. The telecom services there aren't really comparable to NYC's, even on leisurely good days. But the Big Easy could take a lesson from the Big Apple, just as all cities can. We proved that disaster recovery can be highly effective, and those results are available to the world. These scale disasters are becoming more frequent. People should become familiar with techniques for coping with them now, before the crisis, when planning and preparation can be done on one's own schedules, and not merely the best one can do when disaster strikes.
--
make install -not war
And of course if you have BPL active in your city 99.9% of the time, making the HF bands useless, how many hams would go to the trouble of obtaining and maintaining HF equipment for that 0.1% of the time it actually works? A rig may work after being in storage for a few years, but the batteries probably won't, and the antenna may or may not.
Fortunately, BPL has not been rolled out universally, so the HF bands are still useful for most. For now.
DE AD5RH
Big shot. It is 6200x8000 pixels and 8.4 MB big. Amazing how clear and big we can get with today's satellites.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
The cell phone is a luxury right now; a dry place to sleep is the real need.
The Red Cross is bringing in telcom equipment to not only provide an outside link to those affected by the disaster, but to also coordinate the RC's response to this disaster.
Each service center and shelter needs comms back to their assigned HQ which also needs comms to other HQ's and to the National HQ in Washington D.C. How do you do that in areas which have had their infrastructure wiped out? You bring it with you.
That is why the Red Cross is deploying their ECRVs (mentioned in the article) and "Fly Away Kits" which provide stationary sat comms.
This is not about giving people cell service (something the Red Cross isn't equipped for), this is about creating a lifeline to the rest of the world using satellite links and VoIP.
Instead of trying to retain full voice, wouldn't it be better to just limit none essential mobiles to text? Then the system could survive on far fewer base stations, but retain some communications for all. You can surely get many more text messages through the network than voice.
...Answer...
Lets see:
The Thelephone Systemm is designed with statistical multiplexing in mind (extremely simplified explanation: the capacity is that of what is expected in the peak hour as an average) but the system is not able to fullfill EVERY SINGLE REQUEST from EVERY SINGLE USER at the same time. For those interested, the capasity is derived from Earlang tables (link for the Danish Matematician: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agner_Krarup_Erlang/ Link for the unit and calculations in telecoms: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlang_unit/)
Mobile systems, being telecom systems, are designed along the same lines, but allowing for mobility. That is why, when there is rush hour, or when there is a concert, or when there are demonstartions (in my country, Venezuela, at least) it was hard to get throug. With Mobile systems, you have two choke points. The antena itself (Called BTS in GSM terms, I will use GSM terminology because I worked for 6 years in various positions and capacities the field), and the switch itself (MSC, again in GSM Terms). Normaly you engineer the system so that the blocking rate due to the MSC is many times lower that the blocking rate due to the BTSs (RF)
If everybody tries to call 911 at the same time, or call their relatives, or receive a call from relatives, the system will not be able to cope. Add to that the fact that many BTSs (and other infrastructure) will be out of service due to the following reasons:
- The Towers/Antenae themselves are damaged
- The tower/antenae are ok, but the Microwave links between them and the MSC (BSCs and transcoders taken into account) are missaligned due to the wind.
- ADSL Links to the BTSs not working.
- Lack of power
- Equipment destroyed (A tree falls on the shellter damaging the electronics, but the antena is ok. It happens. Once One of our BTSs was out because some moron fired at the shelter, and the bullet perforated a Satellite modem).
- et cetera
Now you begin to see the challenge here.
Is not that there is nothing to be done. In GSM you have a copuple of tricks down your Sleeve. First, you can activate a mode known as Half-Rate. This will decrease the datarate of a voicecall, from aprox 13.3Kbps to aprox 6.7Kbps. The voicequality will suffer, but the (remaining) Capacity of the radiofrequency system will be doubled, just like that!.
The second thing that can be done is to put the system in Emergency mode. In this mode, Some calls get priority over the others. That is to say, police, firefigthers, goverment oficials, the phones of the people that work for the operator, and calls alerady stablished to the emergency number (911 in USA, 121 in europe, 127 here in venezuela) get priority over all other calls, allowing the relief personnel to better coordinate their efforts.
I do not know what can be done in the CDMA200 1xRTT world, but I am sure there are some tricks for them as well.
Here in Venezuela (and in Colombia, where I also worked), we have very bad Electrical systems, so many of our BTSs (and all of our BSCs and MSCs) have battery backup power AND motogenerators, giving them an autonomy of Two or more days (until the Diesel fuel dries out). In a situation like that of Katrina, it may not be possible to replenish the fuel. But to make it worse, in america the electric system is so good, that is dificult to justify the use of motogenerators in the BTSs themselves, but just in critical pieces of equipment. So, after some hours, is goodbye to the cell system. The MSC may Still work, and the BSCs. The SMSs that your family sends you from the other side of the globe will be received, and will be stored in the SMSC server, but will not get to you because there will be no towers on. GAME OVER.
So, is not the ubiquity of the equipment, but a design focused on availability and disaster handling that will allow you to be able to stay comunicated during time
*** Suerte a todos y Feliz dia!
As the TV show said, we have the technology. It's a business decision how to deploy it. Can you run your business by having enough capacity for rare peak demand? Probably not. In the 2003 blackout, cellphones failed not because of the electricity outage but because people saturated the network. Such events happen rarely. Presumably those who really need to communicate (ie emergency services) in those situations have the means to do so outside of commercial channels. For private companies, it may not be reasonable or possible to accomodate the event when EVERYONE is dialing at the same time.
This is not limited to natural disasters and other such situations. I have a beach house. When the weather is not so nice, my cellphone works fine there. When it's beautiful, it doesn't work so well because a large amount of people have flooded to the beach and there isn't enough local capacity for them. Why people are yammering away on the beach instead of enjoying themselves is beyond me. Or maybe they just have a boss like me.
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and will continue to, at least until BPL destroys all HF communications. http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2005/08/30/1/?nc= 1
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
it may have happened, OTOH, in any great disaster strike, many 'fantastic' tales get circulated that turn out to not be true.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
But not to you, Mr. Asshole. To you, its THEIR fault this happened. Its my grandmothers fault that her house is under water right now (which is why I am so mad at your heartless comment). I mean 40 years ago she COULD have bought it somewhere else, except for the fact that my grandfather's job was in New Orleans and they didn't have the means to live else where. But no, you are right, its her fault.
This shit makes me sooo mad. And to see such cold tripe modded up....sad day...
Open Source Sushi
It seems that you can get one or two watts of transmitter to go amazing distances if you know a little antennae theory and know how to lay your hands on a reel of coax cable.
Long-wires, capacity hats, incredible things like directional-discontinuity ring radiators, very high tech that can be built with a few iron fence stakes and a bit of wire and a good head for geometry.
Astoundingly powerful communications technology for an extremely accessible cost. If you want to know more get an old ARRL handbook. Sort of like the older Boy Scout Handbooks from back in the days when they were useful, but cover all the basics of home-brew transmitters. Get one.
One of the problems ham radio faces in times of cataclysmic storm is the shape of the ionosphere at the time and place. It's used as a signal reflector. On good days you can whisper from Maine to Tokyo on a watt. On bad days, you can't punch through with 50MW unless you have line of sight.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Back in the late seventies and early eighties, Gerard K. O'Neill, famous for the development of the idea of orbital space habitats, made the rounds of the government and corporate powers to strongly propose the idea of the satellite phone. He wanted to have a profit-making reason to go into space to realize his dreams.
The prototype phone he showed around was about the size of a cellular handset you could buy today.
O'Neill's project never made it out of the gate. Too expensive for a private company to make, and we are all about private companies.
Bill Gates famously put some of his cash into a six billion dollar venture called Iridium which actually still functions. At least, unless they've deorbitted due to budget woes. They went bankrupt, and the US government picked it up for pennies on the dollar. That's one way of getting a cheap satphone system.
America and the rest of the planet went a different route, for purely business reasons. It was more profitable to roll out cellular coverage in stages, as customers could be found to pay the bills. They make fabulous amounts of money.
But as we see today in New Orleans, although cell phones passed the money test, they've utterly failed to support their users. People are dying out there because the cheap, easy-to-build cell towers are powerless and flooded.
Sometimes, and I can't see how much more forcefully a point can be made than an entire region falling out of communication, engineering for critical infrastructure should NOT BE LEFT SOLEY TO THE FREE MARKET.
The military is flying in satphones so that rescuers and cops can finally talk to each other.
Iridium, or a successor should be government subsidized, expanded, and maintained as a national security asset. Screw the cell phone companies. Screw the billionaires. Make a national phone company, like the post office. Let it operate independently, for profit, but chartered to provide service for all, from the satellites in the sky, at subidized prices. Priority for disasters. We need this. It is not an optional extra for civilization.
I know someone who can't rest because a relative was driving north on I-10 and hasn't been heard from in over two days. He should be able to phone. A prison has rioted, and no one can get through to find out what's going on.
If we can spend a trillion- yes, after it is over, a trillion will be spent-- on this war in Iraq, we can spend a few measly billion dollars a year in perpetuity to make sure this infrastructure failure never happpens again.
Libertarians, this one's for you. A lesson in humility and sanity. Government is sometimes the only solution.
I just recieved reports that New Oreleans trunked 800 MHz trunked system failed. Ham radio operators are pretty much standing by waiting to get into the city. People are being evacuated from the city and the last thing they would do is let hams go in. I have been listening to the Hurricane Net and am really amazed by all the work they and the SATERN guys are doing. Good luck to all of them.
www.kb3juv.com
that story aside, there is no absolutes when plotting the path of a hurricane. remember if you evacuate people, you have to move them somewhere... and you may be moving them right into the path of the storm. Amtrak trains would be a very slow way to do mass evacuations of a whole region.... and the trains have limited directions they can go. didn't you ever see a Godzilla movie? the people on the trains ALWAYS get it.
there is also the case of many people not wanting to leave. in a way i could see their thinking. people did not expect this kind of devastation. people have a habit of recalling the worst storm they remember and figure "i survived that". they also fear leaving all their possessions to looters or whatever.