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GCN Home > 05/26/08 issue

Wireless systems brace for storms

GCN Insider: Carriers harden networks on coasts as hurricane season arrives

By William Jackson

WITH THE HURRICANE season opening June 1 predicted to be more active than usual, major wireless carriers have been hardening networks in the vulnerable Southeast and Gulf Coast states.

Florida has been the focus of a lot of this activity because of its double-coast exposure to the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico.

Verizon Wireless has spent $150 million in the state during the past year — and Sprint Nextel has spent $59 million — to add cell sites, generators and fuel storage facilities; position mobile emergency response equipment; and strengthen key switching facilities.

“Florida is generally an area that seems to get hit hardest by storms,” said Sprint spokeswoman Stephanie Walsh.

The past year’s effort is not a onetime expenditure but part of an ongoing investment to ensure that wireless communications remain in operation during an emergency or can be quickly restored if there is a disruption.

Mobile equipment can temporarily enhance network capacity in disaster areas, providing additional cellular sites or satellite links to accommodate emergency response teams arriving in stricken communities. Hardened networks would benefit first responders and other crews responding to an emergency.

According to forecasts by Philip Klotzbach and William Gray of Colorado State University’s Department of Atmospheric Science, this year’s six-month Atlantic hurricane season is likely to produce an above-average number of storms.

Although the past two seasons have not been particularly harsh, “we foresee a well-above-average Atlantic basin tropical-cyclone season in 2008,” they wrote. “We anticipate an above-average probability of a United States major hurricane landfall.” In a forecast updated in April, they predicted eight hurricanes this year with four described as intense.

The most common threat to communications during a severe storm is not destruction of physical infrastructure but loss of power. Individual cell sites tend to survive high winds and flooding, Walsh said.

“That is a testament to the site planning” for the towers, she said. “That’s why we focus on backup power.”

More news on related topics: Communications / Networks, Mobile & Wireless, Homeland Security, State & Local



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