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Post-Katrina landscape turned into wireless lab - Wireless World - MSNBC.com
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High-tech heros in hurricane aftermath
Tech-sawy volunteers and Navy personnel rushed to ravaged areas in the gulf to set up new and tested wireless systems following Hurricane Katrina's destruction of telecommunications infrastructure.
What they used
SATELLITE LONG-RANGE	MESH	INTERNET	DONATED
DATA LINKS	WIRELESS	NETWORKS TELEPHONES LAPTOPS
Soon after the storm, satellite data links provided high-speed Internet
Emerging WiMax standard beamed 45 miles out on mHitary frequency
Multiple WiFi hot spots were combined to form a broad wireless cloud
Phones on the Web ahcwed evacuees, officials to make, receive casts
Thousands of notebook computers were deployed to WiFi hot spot areas
AP
The spontaneous wireless projects by groups that simply wanted to help — government mandate or not — is spurring interest in how to deploy the latest in communications technology and expertise in a more organized fashion after future disasters.
"It's pretty clear that it was the folks out in the field who did some amazing heroics to get communications back up," said Carl Malamud, chief technology officer of the Center for American Progress think tank. "We need to move toward a system where people are empowered to do what they can do."
In Louisiana and Mississippi, Katrina initially knocked out 2.8 million phone lines, more than 1,600 cell phone towers and more than 420,000 cable TV connections that also can serve as Internet links, the Federal Communications Commission said.
Some quick-fix systems still in place
In some areas, the wireless networks hastily formed by geek volunteers served as a stopgap while traditional services were restored, often in a matter of days. But in the most devastated areas, they continue to be the link to the outside world.
"Nowadays, without communications, you're basically dead in the water," said Robert Gavagnie, fire chief of devastated Bay St. Louis, Miss. “In the old days you could get by without it. Nowadays, you've just got to have it."
Just days after Katrina struck, the FCC set up a clearinghouse where offers of equipment and expertise could be coordinated with the needs of the disaster area. The agency also eased rules for some advanced
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9591546
8/31/2006