“But when you have an operation like this, you have to be coordinated, you have to know where you’re going. And one of the big issues at the beginning was just communication. Think of it—the State Department couldn’t even talk to the officials in the Haitian government initially.”

Can We Communicate Better Today?

What if a Haiti-like event—or any disruption that knocks out communications and power—happened in your community today? Could your government officials call anyone outside the area to coordinate critical resources?  Could your county emergency managers reach the governor to identify needs and request support? Could the governor and his or her staff email or call FEMA? Would anyone be able to tweet or update the community on Facebook or other social networks? Would they be in the same boat as Haitian officials were a year ago today?

If Haiti’s leaders had portable satellite communications kits with solar power, Washington could have known what they needed within minutes—instead of hours, even days—of the 7.0 quake.

To honor the memory of those lost a year ago and to respect the lives of people everywhere, let’s resolve to be resilient. Let’ accept the fact that communications networks can and do fail—more often than we like to admit. Without adequate communications for sharing situational awareness, people unnecessarily suffer—even die. Let’s commit to having a Plan B so lack of communications is never a question for rapid response when lives are at stake.

Inmarsat has been at the forefront of mobile satellite services for over 31 years and is a recognized leader in mobile satellite communications. The first Inmarsat-4 was launched in November 2005. Three years later, all three Inmarsat-4s were in orbit, creating the full global network which supports mobile satellite broadband services on land, at sea, and in the air.

Today, there are almost 50,000 land mobile terminals activated, 13,000 FleetBroadband (maritime) and more than 1,100 SwiftBroadband (aeronautical).

Congratulations Inmarsat … and Happy Birthday BGAN!!

Those who travel often know well the importance of staying connected with family, friends, and colleagues. Despite the sometimes annoying omnipresent demand on us to respond immediately to calls, email, and SMS – there is indeed a sense of comfort through being interconnected with the knowledge that remote contact is only a few keystrokes away. This need is heightened when we are traveling and especially when such travel involves long distances and may take us to remote locations.

Despite the seemingly pervasiveness of networking, there is still a significant portion of the planet where the ability to easily connect a phone or computer is a pleasant surprise. In many other places, it is not possible without bringing your network with you. More and more we are finding ourselves in these locations for work or for pleasure. For most working people today, NOT being connected is a huge detriment to their productivity and when they travel to locations where connectivity is not available, they must bring their network with them. Thanks to advances in mobile broadband technologies, this is now an easy matter to address.

Portable communications systems are readily available at reasonable cost from any number of service providers for connecting from anywhere on the planet at anytime.  OODAkits are one example of self-contained mobile broadband communication kits that support five to ten concurrent users making phones calls, accessing the Web, and transmitting live video. Iridium satphones are examples of single-user telephones that work nearly everywhere on the planet as long as you are willing to use the phone when you have a clear line-of-site to the sky.

If you depend on connectivity for your work, consider taking your network with you for those critical missions where you must, without fail, make connections, talk with others, and get online.

Communication equipment for emergencies, disaster response, and humanitarian aid MUST be portable to be truly effective (and water MUST be potable). You never know where the next disaster will strike (although we have a good idea of where the real dung will hit the fan when they do).

Pre-positioning communications assets is a reasonable strategy (hope for help isn’t) when resource constraints aren’t a big concern – but when will that ever be the case? Consider portable communications systems for those times you don’t want to think about. They can be easily kept ready and quickly transported to wherever they are needed.

Be sure the portable systems you consider include capabilities for multiple people to coordinate locally (among each other on scene) as well as remotely (connect to help and resources out of the immediate area) using voice, data, and video communications tools… and DON’T FORGET ABOUT POWER!