Planned events help Telus, emergency personnel prepare for unforeseen disasters

Even though the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver aren’t scheduled to kick off for another four years, Telus Mobility is already gearing up its mission-critical communications and emergency response services. But as it prepares for a planned event like the Olympics, the network provider is also ready to deploy emergency response support for any catastrophe. Ice storms, blackouts, hurricanes, and terrorist attacks are among the events that Telus is prepared to provide communications support for. While these incidents will come with little or no warning to first responders, planned events such as the Olympics provide somewhat of a proving ground for workers and technologies. "Having the planned events are almost like exercises," Rick Good, Telus Mobility’s VP public safety and security solutions, tells Report on Wireless. "You have the huge advantage of knowing dates, so you can get staff there in a timely fashion and exercise the technology in advance so it takes some of the risks away. All of that is good preparation because when you have these unplanned events you’re used to the technology and people are familiar with how to use it…so it just takes away some of the confusion." At the Conference Board of Canada’s Second Public-Private Sector Summit on National Security in Ottawa on May 10, Good gave a presentation on Telus’ emergency response services and communications, including an overview of planning for the 2010 Olympics. Examining the lessons learned from past Olympic security efforts, Telus knows it will have to account for the influx of people to Vancouver – athletes, spectators and over 9,000 members of the media – and prepare for areas of concern such as natural disasters, terrorism, and even traffic congestion and crowd management. Perhaps the most significant lesson learned from past Olympic games, particularly the 2004 summer games in Athens, is the importance of planning ahead. Athens spent more than $1 billion on security, in large part because much of the implementation was last-minute. So even though 2010 seems far off, it’s rapidly approaching for Telus: Good says the security network has to be in place by 2009, so the company is down to three years to plan. Of course, the problem then is, knowing communications technologies will become increasingly advanced every month and year between now and 2009, how does Telus finally decide on how to implement its network? "You have to draw a line in the sand and say, ‘this has to be in on that date, use technology that’s proven up until 2009,’ and you go with that," says Good. He adds that there is additional desire to perform because the Vancouver Olympics will be viewed as "Canada’s Games" by everyone else in the world. "The Olympics present an opportunity for Canada to make a name for itself in terms of security," he says. Unforeseen disasters, however, can present an opportunity for wireless operators to respond at a moment’s notice. Interoperability, security, integrated voice and data, and facilitating command and control are important architectural considerations for all mission-critical communications, according to Good. Under those guidelines, the network must allow for inter-agency communications; provide mobility across regions; prevent unauthorized access to communication or data; and allow priority access, including "ruthless pre-emption," for emergency responders. On top of these necessities, providing communications to a disaster zone has inherent problems from the outset as existing equipment could have suffered damage and networks are often congested early on. "The first thing most people do when there is a catastrophe is grab their cell phone and call someone," Good said in his presentation. Telus solves these problems by operating on an iDEN network, which is isolated from the PSTN and allows first responder communications to pre-empt local traffic. Good adds: "what’s unique about the iDEN network is it has a much larger footprint than any first responder network in Canada, so it’s more flexible in that way." For its first responder communications, Telus already boasts an impressive list of clients that includes almost every major police force in Canada, as well as the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Coast Guard. The company also has two SATCOLTs (Satellite and Cellular on Light Trucks) that it can deploy to a disaster area to provide communications both on the network space or by linking up with a satellite and, through its antennae, providing a cell site covering approximately 20 kilometres around the truck. The SATCOLT cell site features 268 channels, which translates to about 1000 two-way radios. On the same day as the Conference Board’s national security summit, Telus also launched SafteyNet, its set of mission critical emergency response communications services to help government, security personnel and other responders co-ordinate their activities during emergencies. The SATCOLTs – one for Eastern Canada, one for the West – are part of SafteyNet’s emergency response support offering, along with handset inventories to replace systems if voice and data communications networks are down, which were used in the effort following Hurricane Katrina. SafteyNet also includes a web-based notification system, an emergency operation centre technology infrastructure, and a critical wireless network. To emphasize Telus’ position on emergency response, Good pointed to the fact that the Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word crisis: one stands for danger and the other for opportunity. "When there is a crisis it is an opportunity to perform and save lives…and demonstrate that all the planning and technology comes together," he said. "Don’t wait until you have a problem to realize that you don’t have interoperable communications."

Planned events help Telus, emergency personnel prepare for unforeseen disasters

News | 05/18/2006 4:00 am EDT

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