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Mobile Cell Phone Towers For Disaster Relief
Posted by
timothy
on Wed Jun 30, 2004 04:48 PM
from the well-seattle's-a-reception-disaster dept.
from the well-seattle's-a-reception-disaster dept.
cerberus4696 writes "According to today's Denver Post, Verizon recently premiered one of its new Cells On Light Trucks (COLTs), a complete, self-contained CDMA cell that can be moved to wherever it's needed, such as the scene of a natural disaster or a large public event. Since a standard CDMA cell can only handle a theoretical maximum of 62 calls at a time (usually less in practice), the network of permanent fixtures can quickly become overloaded in high-use situations. Verizon already uses a larger version of the system known as a Cell On Wheels (or COW; gotta love these acronyms), but as it takes three trucks and the better part of a day to deploy, nimbleness of response has apparently been an issue."
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sheesh (Score:2, Informative)
Cell towers in remote places... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is usually used here in shows or sports event (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:sheesh (Score:3, Interesting)
A couple of years later I saw a SOW (Switch on Wheels), though it took a little more effort to
Pictures? (Score:4, Interesting)
Remembers me about those Lasershow-trucks from Lobo [www.lobo.de] - they're really cool!
wow, only 62 calls at once? (Score:5, Interesting)
Anonymous Coward
Re:wow, only 62 calls at once? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:wow, only 62 calls at once? (Score:5, Informative)
Sectorization refers to the practice, common with all cellular technologies, of dividing up the area around a cell site into regions, or sectors, each served by its own set of directional antennas. Three sector cells are extremely common; that's why so many towers have triangular platforms with a set of antennas on each side. There are usually three antennas on each side: one for transmit and two for receive, with the extra receive antenna providing spatial diversity.
Most CDMA cell sites in built-up areas have three (or six) sectors, operate on more than one 1.25 MHz RF channel, and use the newer CDMA 2000 1x standard. That can easily provide a total cell capacity of considerably more than 61 calls.
CDMA 2000 1x doubles the number of Walsh code channels (to 128) by adding a second set of traffic channels in quadrature to the original 64. Virtually all CDMA phones sold over the past few years do 1x.
Because of CDMA's inherent robustness, the same RF channel can be reused in adjacent cells and even adjacent sectors, greatly increasing the overall capacity of the spectrum in a given area. Because no careful frequency reuse plan is required, CDMA is also very well suited to the rapid deployment of cells in "hot spots" as described in this article.
Disclaimer: I work for Qualcomm.
Parent
Re:wow, only 62 calls at once? (Score:5, Funny)
I come here for uninformed and incomplete comments from college freshmen who think that they know everything about cell phones because they know how to operate the features on a phone. I don't want someone who understands telecommunications. I would prefer someone who know how to program. Because being able to program a PC is basically the same thing as telecommunications. So why don't you just take your "facts" and "knowledge" and just go home.
Parent
Re:MOD PARENT UP (Score:3, Informative)
The other traffic channels are still available for soft and softer handoff. That's when two or more cells (or sectors within a cell) carry a single call simultaneously. The mobile combines
Re:wow, only 62 calls at once? (Score:3, Informative)
Chargers (Score:3, Funny)
COWs? (Score:5, Funny)
Traffic (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Traffic (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
So... (Score:2, Interesting)
If they were really for "disaster relief" and not "public image relief" these mobile towers would be system-neutral.
Actually, I think it highlights a bigger problem - if the companies worked together with standards that were compatible, mobile phone coverage would be much better and busy networks would be much less of a problem.
Re:So... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Nextel (Score:3, Insightful)
Natural (or other) disaster (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Natural (or other) disaster (Score:4, Interesting)
Unfortunately, none of these would have really helped on 9-11. The fact that huge swathes of Verizon's infrastructure were taken out by the towers collapsing meant that it wasn't just a lack of cell tower capacity. They would've needed dozens of microwave links to even BEGIN to handle the loss. COLTs and COWs are handy for "lesser" disasters (floods, ice storms, etc) where a permanent cell towers are either out of commission or overloaded but most of the basic telecom infrastructure is still functional.
Parent
Re:Natural (or other) disaster (Score:3, Informative)
Most towers are simply spokes hubbed back to the MSC. If that connection to the MSC is lost the cell is pretty much useless. If
Bad acronym (Score:4, Funny)
9-11 used something like this (Score:5, Interesting)
Llamas? (Score:5, Funny)
Did anyone else notice this? Llamas. And helicopters. Sounds elaborate. Makes me glad I'm not with Verizon.
Which is why Ham ops are still useful (Score:5, Informative)
Which is a good reason that Ham radio ops are still useful, particularly in disaster relief scenarios where much of the local infrastructure may have been destroyed.
But first you have to get us to stop talking about the weather and our rigs.
Mobile Cell Phone Towers For Disaster Relief? (Score:4, Funny)
Those damn kids and their new technology!
ongoing emergency (Score:2)
Llamas On Topic (Score:2)
"In 2000
Llamas, Cows, and Colts, all in a post about deprecated cellphone tech. It brings a tear to my eye.
-theGreater Barnyard Activist.
News on parade... (Score:5, Funny)
(Queue trumpets)
Thanks to new advances in radio cullularology, our fearless fighting men in Europe can stay in touch with one another in the field and their commanding officers back at the base. This is accomplished by the US Army's Verizon Corps, who follow our troops across Europe erecting cellular phone towers at key battle sites. This gives our fighting men an advantage over the German oppressors, who are forced to rely on tin cans connected by string. So, when the US Army asks, "Can you hear me now?", America can proudly say, Yes We Can.
This has been News... On... Parade...
Why there's still a place for two way radio (Score:2)
Blimps (Score:5, Interesting)
You drive to site, inflate, and let her pop-up. Crank up your Honda generator and away you go. And now let the EEs shoot down my idea (not literally).
Re:Blimps (Score:4, Informative)
They probably won't [mbusinessdaily.com]
Parent
Making Amature Radio Irrelevant? (Score:4, Insightful)
I rather wonder, aside from the hobby aspect, how much longer Amature Radio will remain relevant. Seems disasters where AR would really shine and this sort of thing seems to replace them, as now pretty much anyone can afford a hand held phone, where once transmitters and receivers were the domain of those who actually cared enough to outfit and train themselves to be available for when there was need. Now you just whip out a cell phone and dial 911.
Re:Making Amature Radio Irrelevant? (Score:3, Insightful)
Good question. For day-to-day 911 calls, yes cellphones are fantastic tools that have completely overwhelmed turf which Hams once had a unique claim to (2-way mobile comm). Natural disasters are still another story, however.
"Now you just whip out a cell phone and dial 911."
Now what happens when that cyclone roars through and tears your cell tower network to shreds. What do you do until an emergency cell network of limited capactity is rebuilt? Meaning transported to disaster area, properly placed and
Re:Making Amature Radio Irrelevant? (Score:3)
An amateur radio repeater ju
dirigibles (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, a couple of gyroscopes and some electric motors is all it would take to keep the thing approximately where it's supposed to be. They could carry batteries that recharge using solar cells during the day.
And then I thought, surely someone else has thought of this -- but I never hear anything about them, so maybe not.
InfraLynx communications vehicle (pictures) (Score:3, Informative)
2600 took some pictures. they are here http://www.2600.com/offthehook/2003/1001files/ [2600.com]
another link:
http://iwce-mrt.com/ar/radio_infralynx_hummer_del
and the google page: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=inf
Not really Disaster relief (Score:3, Interesting)
Loss of phone services in the situations the article describes is certainly inconvenient for the public, but hardly a disaster. Unless they were talking about the companies revenue.
I'd be more interested if they could find a way to set up fast communications networks when there has been an earthquake or such where good communications may really help rescue and reconstruction efforts.
But then in that situation you could certainly put more useful facilities on three trucks than a cell phone system.
Who cares about CDMA.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Used in Australia too (Score:3, Informative)
Unlike GSM, however, CDMA in Australia is (AFIAK) a Telstra-only service (Australia Telecom).
CDMA performs surprisingly well, almost matching the range of the old analogue AMPS towers we had circa 1999, and at a fraction of the cost (per base station).
Too bad the first (Qualcomm) phones they sold for it were crap - buggy firmware, expensive car kits
Old News (Score:3, Informative)
Here in New Zealand we have had mobile cell sites at popular New Years holiday spots (to handle surge capacity) when the country goes on holiday for a week or two at Xmas/New Year. They have been doing this a couple of years at least.
Whata so special about this one?
Pictures + in Europe a normal thing.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Nothing new (Score:3, Interesting)
This is hardly new (Score:4, Interesting)
Because communication IS a good thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Communication actually is the first service that is needed after a natural disaster. It just turns out that cellular service gives the best bang-for-buck in terms of communication capability.
Parent
Not just for the disaster workers. (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Um... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Um... (Score:3, Insightful)
I digress... My point was, when a disaster strikes, you often have volunteers helping with the disaster relief. In our case, the volunteers were relying on cell phones for communications. Not everyone has access to police or res
Re:Um... (Score:3, Interesting)
So are they going to hand out radios to victims so they can be found?
Fire Chief on phone (Score:3, Informative)
-Radio communications that Fire Departments/Ambulances/Police use are usually one or two half duplex channel. If you are lucky, you have four or five channels, but only one or two will get you in touch with you dispatcher (911 center). During a natural disaster, hundreds of units across your county could be trying to reach the 911 center at the same time. The e