ReliefSource

Taran Rampersad gives an overview of his experiences in the last year. Beginning with the tsunami, Taran was one of those with a tech background who took up the challenge of applying technology to disaster response. He’s one of the mainstays of the Mobileactive community, and his focus was on sms (short message service, for those of you who don’t know, which apparently includes nearly everybody in the USA). His overview is a succint summary of my last six years:

“The main problem I saw last year was that the people affected by disasters directly did not have a voice… This was the premise of the Alert Retrieval Cache… The problem in that evolution was that nobody used it.”

The sequence: 1) identify problem, 2) develop solution, 3) get frustrated because nobody’s using it. I share that frustration, and not just because I’m a caring kind of guy, either. I used to subscribe to the “if you build it, they will come” theory - right up until I realised that they were only going to come if I pointed out that I’d built it. The importance of marketing these solutions - now clear. Specifically the importance of marketing through a network, not through the classic producer-consumer relationship. These things live or die on distribution, on building up critical mass in the community and then becoming a standard.

Amongst the other points that Taran raises are the need for the following:

1. Internet Access when the infrastructure cannot support it
2. Independent Power Source for centralized system.
3. Ability to recharge cell phones independent of infrastructure.

The good news is that both 1 and 2 are not a big deal - they’re problems where, if you throw enough money at them, a satellite dish and a generator will appear. This is how most humanitarian NGOs operate, although of course there are very few of those organisations that extend those services to the people in need (Telecoms sans Frontieres being the notable exception). Number 3, no idea - I imagine the solution will turn out to be either solar-powered (weak), hand-powered (tiring) or based on hooking it up to a car battery (fun).

As Taran also points out, ham radio has also been critically important in a number of cases. Old tech still rules, but is anybody paying attention? Of course not…

I’m digging into disaster telecommunications, behind which there’s a huge body of knowledge which I won’t bore you with. I will scream if I hear the words ‘Tampere Convention‘ again this year. Instead, here’s a short list of what all the kids are using in Pakistan:

• Voice. Well, duh. The main finding so far of this assessment is startling - aid workers prefer talking to each other.
• Landlines. In some places, service was uninterrupted; in most places, service was resumed within 1-2 days. Many NGOs are using dial-up internet service from various towns, although there is plenty of residual distortion due to earthquake damage.
• Cellphones. As above, the network was disrupted for a couple of days. Most people report satisfactory and consistent service, although I hear it’s very patchy around Bisham, and when travelling on the road. Yet this remains the primary means of communication for a lot of people, which ties in with the findings of the GSM Association, who have just released a report on mobile communications in emergency response. (Interesting aside: Oxfam have started equipping laptops with GPRS, giving individual staff access while mobile.)
• Thuraya. I wish I had shares in Thuraya. As the lightest and easiest satellite phone on the market (and the easiest to get past customs), it seems to be indispensable - which is why it was worrying to find that there still weren’t enough of them to go around, even in the biggest NGOs. Having said that, there still seem to be some problems with registration, and besides, who wants to stand outside in a snowstorm just to make a call?
• RBGAN. This fella comes into its own in the early stages of response; it’s frequently the only means of deep field communication. It’s still far too expensive, although hopefully the prices will come down as Inmarsat rolls out the new BGAN units.
• VSAT. Licensing and customs regulations in Pakistan - holy heck. The UN was able to get them in fairly quickly, while NGOs have been stuck for weeks. However VSATs started to clear about two weeks ago, so they’ve now started springing up left, right and centre. More co-ordination needed, please. VSAT is still the best technology for more stable environments, particularly as you can determine your own level of bandwidth, and the market is open enough that you can choose from a range of providers.
• Two tins with a piece of string tied between them. Face it, nobody can beat it for a “communications solution.”