 tschmidtPremium,MVM
join:2000-11-12
Milford, NH
kudos:5
 ·Fairpoint Commun..
 ·Hollis Hosting
| What problem are they trying to solve Lets step back a minute to address the problem space.
Interoperability
I agree emergency responder interoperability is a huge problem. Existing two-way radios are based on ancient radio technology and allocate a fixed frequency for a particular user and area. I used to be on the volunteer ambulance service on our town. Police, Fire, Ambulance, and Public Works were all on different frequencies. Not to mention dealing with Mutual Aid to other towns.
Fixing that requires new radios that are more like WiFi/Cellular then existing two-way service.
The downside of “fixing” interoperability is channel capacity, routing and security. Security is an especially thorny problem. How do you let trusted members communicate in ad hoc manner while keeping conversation private and protecting against denial of service (DOC) attack?
Spectrum
Voice is not very bandwidth intensive. Data and telemetry are very useful but again they are all that demanding. Given modern technology even supporting a few video feeds is not a problem. I don't see why the system would need to allocate lots of bandwidth.
Long Distance Communication
There is no reason to build out a new backbone - we already have the Internet. It is very robust and designed to route around failures.
Survivability
Mesh networks and micro cell technology combined with fiber backbone result in very robust network that is pretty inexpensive. Radio Mesh networks can maintain communication event if physical links are destroyed; however they are worthless without power. As we’ve seen with Hurricanes in New Orleans and ice storms here in New England power may be out for a week or more. That makes backup power a difficult problem.
As others have said any time someone bills a project as “disaster proof” my BS detector goes off. Military networks and the Internet are robust in the face a significant damage but if destruction is extensive enough the network will collapse. The trick is to build a robust flexible network that allows portable equipment to be trucked into the disaster area and quickly setup and integrated into the network. The other important aspect is not to over specialize the design. Using the Internet as an example the trick is focus on transparent end-to-end transport the so-called “DUMB” network. This allows applications to be added/removed without having to modify the network itself.
Price Tag
Not sure exactly what the $17 billion pays for. I don’t know how many responders are involved nationwide. If that equips each and every town, state and federal responders with a robust 21th century communication system it seems pretty cheap.
/Tom
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