Aircraft Emergency Telecom Network to Get Test

The Departments. of Defense and Energy are nearly ready to test airborne communications systems designed to stand in for land-based systems in a major emergency. The communications craft, part of the U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), would be sent aloft on short notice by the President.

The system’s initial role would be connecting 911 calls from the ground to public safety answering points (PSAPs) when communications infrastructures fail. The equipment could handle GSM and CDMA calls.

“We're looking at what basic equipment do you put on the airplane and if you put that equipment in the aircraft what’s its capacity,” Curtis Papke, program mgr. at the Ida. National Lab, the Energy Dept. unit collaborating on the project, told a National Emergency Number Assn. gathering Tues. “What kind of antennas would you put on there? Do they have to be tailorable antenna to focus them on particular area on the ground where the communications infrastructure is degraded or would it just fall on the area in general.”

The project also is studying operational issues, Papke said. “What altitude would they have to fly? How far up from the affected communications infrastructure?” he said: “If you happened to have 2 aircraft… what would be the optimum placement?” Some in local govt. naturally resist DoD involvement, Papke said: “The take-away from this one is that DoD is going to be involved if it’s really, really bad.”

Meanwhile, USNORTHCOM said the annual Interoperability Communications Exercise (DICE) is underway at Ft. Monroe, Va., expected to run 7 weeks. “The DICE venue is an opportunity for Dept. of Defense, National Guard and local first responders to get together to test their communications systems and work with each other to ensure the systems are interoperable and we can share information between DoD, federal and local responders,” said Jim Rizzo, chief of USNORTHCOM’s command, control, communications and computers plans section.