Crisis Talks

When disaster strikes, the ability to communicate can mean the difference between life and death. US Infrastructure speaks to Sprint’s Tanya Lin about the role private companies have to play in public safety.

“Understanding all the assets that you have and creating those partnerships before the actual disaster emergency is critical”
-Tanya Lin

INFRA. How can public private partnerships assist in the development of effective emergency communication systems? What are the benefits that these partnerships can bring?
Tanya Lin. Public and private partnerships are extremely important and it’s vital for private industry and public sector agencies to partner up before an actual disaster event. This way you know what your additional communications resources are, know how to contact your vendors when you need them, and that we’re here to help in these times of crisis as well. Understanding all the assets that you have and creating those partnerships before the actual disaster emergency is critical.

A tremendous amount of the infrastructure of the United States is owned by the private sector; to truly be able to efficiently and effectively communicate at critical times it is important for industry and public sector to work together.

INFRA. How do you go about building these relationships? What are the challenges for a company like Sprint in working with the public sector?
TL. It is important to always stay in the forefront of the technology, and at Sprint we rely heavily on our front line sales and solutions engineering teams to showcase our capabilities to our customers and to gather the customers needs and communication gaps so we can find solution sets to fill those needs. I think one of the challenges is really in the understanding of all the tools and resources that are out there and available for communication, and the role that the private sector plays in that. Sometimes parochialism gets in the way. It’s also important that there is an understanding of the technology and the role that the technology can play on a daily basis. Then, when an event occurs it’s not a new problem.

INFRA. How important is it that emergency communications be standardized and interoperable?
TL. Standardization is very important. The P-25 initiative is actually going to bring a lot of benefit to the public sector community. It means that you’re not going to have all of these disparate radio and communication systems trying to talk to one another in a large, regionalized-type event like a hurricane Katrina, where you saw multiple agencies traveling in from multiple different states to assist in the response and recovery effort. So these standardization initiatives are extremely important in order for us to move forward and improve communications during incidents.

INFRA. What are the technical challenges for you in terms of making these things work and be interoperable?
TL. Technically we already have products that are operable, and that we are using, such as audio cross-connect devices and ACU devices, which allow our Nextel Direct Connect product to be P-25 compliant. From a Sprint standpoint we are able to interoperate with multiple disparate radio systems and P-25 compliant radio systems to bring interoperable communications to the field for everyday use and during disasters or times of crisis.

INFRA. What are the technologies that are currently driving the communication space, and do you see any major game-changing innovations coming along in the near future?
TL. The technologies are constantly evolving and changing. There are multiple different technologies out there that use both the existing infrastructure and new infrastructure. Right now a lot of technologies are utilizing voice-over IP, operating over satellite systems and SMS technologies for mass public notifications. There are a lot of different technologies out there, so it’s all about lessons learned. You have a disaster, you go back and look at what worked, and what didn’t. The Santa Barbara wildfires are just now wrapping up in California, and they are providing us with a lot of real-world experience. It’s about communicating with the community itself, with emergency services and between first responders so that they can work to resolve the crisis quickly with minimal loss of life and property. At Sprint, it is important for us to complete our own internal after-action reviews. We ask ourselves what worked, what didn’t, and how can we make our program better? The public sector agencies do the exact same thing as well. So you’ll find after each emergency or disaster that technology will evolve to fill in the gaps.

INFRA. Technology plays a big part in these communications, but what role does the human side of the equation play in building these reliable and secure systems?
TL. I think the human factor plays a big role in it, because what we’re talking about is leadership. Look at what George Foresman would say when he was with the Department of Homeland Security. He would tell you the technology existed; it was the human factor that really played a big role in terms of making the decisions and ensuring that there was that effort there to really look to bring the different disciplines together. It was down to people to ensure that they could talk to each other and that they would get out of their own way and really focus on the task at hand.

INFRA. You mentioned the California wildfires as a situation where these communications have been successfully deployed. Are there any other examples you could give me where your technology has been successfully deployed?
TL. From a Sprint perspective we have multiple assets that we can deploy to augment our current existing coverage, or to supplement a tower that may have gone down due to disaster or emergency. We have what are called SatCOLTS, which are satellite cell and light trucks which  utilize a satellite backhaul capability, microwave and terrestrial T1 to connect back to our network. The SatCOLTs are fully self-contained, with mounted generators for power, and they’re built on an F-650 chassis. So really you get in, you drive it to where you need it to go, and then you set it up. You can use the satellite T-1 in order to download the site load so that that truck actually knows what cell site it is, and it can operate as an existing cell site.  We also have what are called flyaway kits.  These flyaway kits are portable satellite dishes and equipment that we can connect to an existing cell site. So when a local telco cannot either provide a T-1 out there or the T-1 connection has been severed, these satellite flyaway kits provide the T-1s that will operate that cell site and allow that cell site to connect back to our National network. We have used these flyaway kits for multiple response events including Hurricane Ike.  In fact, nearly a year later, on Galveston Island we still have a satellite flyaway kit attached to one of our cell sites because they still cannot run the telco out to that site. So it’s very important to be able to have these types of assets to restore communications quickly.

Also, at Sprint, we have what’s called an Emergency Response Team (ERT), of which I’m the manager. What we do is we assist and partner up with first responders. We actually have an emergency operations center reservist program. So when there’s a large-scale type disaster –wildfires or hurricane Katrina, hurricane Ike – and they open those emergency operations centers, we have bodies available to staff those EOCs so that we can act as liaisons for those public sector agencies. If they need any information on Sprint towers or we need to pass any information from our network people to these public sector agencies, such as to help facilitate access so they can get a site on air, that’s what we do. We provide personnel, equipment and infrastructure assets. We work with our network teams to ensure that we can put up coverage in a certain location. We work with our sales teams to talk to those customers, so we know where we need that augmented communication. We also have over 25,000 handsets in inventory that we loan to state and local agencies during times of crisis and disasters so that they have those extra communication devices when needed.

Tanya Lin is the manager of operations for the Sprint Emergency Response Team (ERT). In this role, she has national responsibility for the operations and direction of Sprint ERT, a one-of-a-kind elite rapid response communications organization that provides interoperability and communication augmentation for Federal, State and Local Public Safety, Law Enforcement, Military agencies and Enterprise clients.