[amsat-bb] Re: Phase 4 versus Eagle

[Nate Duehr]

MKM wrote:
> Forget the EMCOMM support, that does not make sense anymore. Read on...
> 
> WIMAX will be available from sprint soon. THAT will be a reliable  
> technology for ecom. With one access point, they will cover a wide  
> area for both data and voice. NOW, imagine multiple access point  
> ( and I mean 2 or 3 max) and regardless of what the ecom situation  
> is, help will get through.

This service will be coming from U.S. carriers who wouldn't even put 
battery/generator backup on most of their wireless POP's until told to 
do so by the FCC after Katrina:

<http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2007/Dec/10/fcc_ruling_may_spur_generator_demand.html>

Even with the new ruling, the FCC only recommends that such sites 
operate for 8 hours on emergency power.

In other words, they don't expect the cellular companies to REFUEL those 
generators in any timely fashion.

I worked for a large co-location company a few years ago, and we had a 
diesel contract that was VERY expensive.

I talked to the truck driver once, and he told me that the order of his 
stops in bad weather/disaster situations would have been:

Denver Health Medical Center - the alive ones at the hospital.
Denver Police Headquarters and the Jail facility - the troublemakers, 
keep them inside.
Denver Morgue - if it's warm out, you don't want the dead ones thawing 
and you probably have outdoor triage and refrigeration going on if 
things aren't quite as bad as Katrina.
Denver Library - Security.  Historical items.
Our data center.

Another route for another truck included the telco central office 
(Denver Main), and the "telco hotel" next door, as it's only customers 
that truck would serve.  As long as the outage lasted, those truck 
wouldn't leave their "circular" routes which were planned to arrive just 
as generators were running out of fuel in a continuous loop.  Any delay 
and we (being at the bottom) would either fall off the list, or they'd 
make arrangements to skip the library.

That was his route with the diesel truck.  He would run around in 
circles and do it all again, if the problem lasted for multiple days.
.
Cell sites?  Nope.  WiMax sites?  No way.

Reality bites:  Cell carriers don't pay to be on priority diesel 
contracts.  Diesel deliveries to cell sites are on "best effort" 
contracts.  They fall below everyone else with priority contracts.

Good luck with your WiMax as an EmComm tool.  Let us know how well it 
serves you when the power goes out and the diesel trucks can't get to 
all those new generators at all the WiMax and cell sites

Nate WY0X