Natural Disasters Underscore Importance of Cellular Connectivity During Emergencies
When natural disasters strike — and they do, in various forms, all year long — every person and group views the devastation differently. When Hurricane Katrina destroyed vast swaths of the Gulf Coast in 2005, telecommunications companies and their equipment manufacturers - such as CradlePoint, Sierra Wireless, and Digi - had a unique lens: they were asked to help keep companies and communities connected at a time when communication was essential.
More recently, communities and telecommunications companies have faced similar problems. In 2022 alone, 14 natural disasters caused fatalities across the country. While many storms take down communications for a few hours, Hurricane Ian in Florida, Hurricane Fiona in Puerto Rico, the bomb cyclone Winter Storm in December, and flooding in the South from July to August killed over 300 people and caused many billions of dollars of both public and private property damage, and downed communications systems for days across enormous areas of the country.
During Katrina, flooding had almost immediately rendered wired broadband lines useless, so one of the largest insurance firms in the country approached Cradlepoint with a unique challenge: provide thousands of insurance field agents with cellular connectivity so they could file claims in real-time, wherever, and whenever they were needed.
"It was a wake-up call for the insurance company. While its customers needed support more than ever, the company didn't have the necessary connectivity to help. The same thing can happen to any business during any disaster," said a senior product manager at Cradlepoint. "We sold the company 17,000 platforms for backup and primary Internet connectivity in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and we haven't slowed down since," he said. "It opened our eyes to how we could contribute to the well-being of communities and the companies that serve them."
Disaster Preparedness Is Imperative for Residents, Corporations, and Utilities
4G LTE and 5G platforms are ideal solutions for storm-ravaged cities because wireless service providers use portable towers to restore service quickly. Conversely, wired networks usually take weeks or months to restore after a natural disaster. When additional threats can be just around the corner, deployment times can be critical.
Now, nearly 20 years later, a world in which network downtime halts virtually all day-to-day operations within most companies means that businesses must have more disaster recovery and business continuity solutions than ever before.
It's not just hurricanes that curb connectivity. Natural disasters strike all year long, from one coast of the U.S. to the other, including earthquakes, wildfires, mudslides, floods, blizzards, avalanches, ice storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, and more.
September is National Preparedness Month for a good reason: In an emergency, being prepared is one of the only factors within our power. For families, preparedness centers on items such as clean drinking water, generators, and nonperishable food. For businesses, reliable network connectivity is the bottom line.
Cellular providers aren't immune to challenges during emergency situations, as problems such as the destruction of towers, loss of power, and rapid increases in cellular traffic often arise. However, providers are well prepared to address those obstacles quickly and efficiently:
- COWs (Cell on Wheels): Mobile cell sites with antenna and equipment to provide wireless coverage or boost capacity.
- COLTs (Cell on Light Trucks): Mobile cell sites, attached to a truck or other large vehicle, with antenna and equipment to extend wireless coverage or boost capacity.
- GOATs (Generator on a Trailer): Mobile electrical generators, often attached to trailers or trucks, deployed to provide electrical power.
- Geo-redundant Disaster Recovery Centers: Monitor cell traffic and reroute and load-balance cell traffic when the number of cell calls into and out of an area surges.
- USAT TRaCK Box: A self-contained, ruggedized communications kit designed to provide fast and reliable connectivity, even in the harshest conditions, with up to 18 hours of battery life.
We'd rather never see another natural disaster, but if and when one does occur, Cradlepoint and USAT will be ready to help support wireless service providers and businesses with 4G LTE and 5G solutions to keep our communities safe and happy.
About USAT
Our team not only helps you select, provision, and activate devices, we make sure they work in practical applications and real-life situations.
For over 25 years, USAT has provided cellular communications solutions for various public safety and disaster response applications across the USA. With our extensive catalog of world-class routers, gateways, and software designed for remote monitoring and management in even the harshest environments — you can count on us to get and keep you connected.
Our connectivity solutions translate to less manual equipment maintenance, reduced downtime, and an overall increase in your business's ROI. Contact the experts at USAT to learn how our wireless networking solutions can help meet your organization's exacting needs.
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