[LINK] Cairns power and 3G wireless networks in recent cyclones

[Phillip Musumeci]

On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 7:23 AM, Tom Worthington <tom.worthington at tomw.net.au
> wrote:

> Phillip Musumeci wrote:
>
>  ... If you wanted to
>>
>> harden the telecomms system so that it assisted in the coordination of
>> responses during and after an emergency ... what would be the best
>> approach?... In the case of 3G networks up north, extending the battery
>> capacity of
>> towers and links upstream might be a cost effective first stage ...
>>
>
> The large publicly subsidised investment in solar panels could be used
> for emergency power. Most of the solar panels installed in Australia are
> currently set up to switch off for safety in a blackout.
>
> With a little extra electronics and wiring, plus some extra batteries,
> the solar panels could be used to charge the backup batteries for
> telecommunications equipment during a blackout. The rest of the time the
> panels would supply power to the grid, as they do now.
>
> I have asked Arnold McKinley to look at how to do this. He developed
> electronics and software for photovoltaic panels in California before
> starting a PHD at ANU:
> <http://blog.tomw.net.au/2010/11/electronics-to-increase-solar-panel.html
> >.
>

Good ideas.  There might be other options to extend emergency use of
mobiles:

1. base station switches to sms only mode during emergencies if that will
significantly extend backup power time

2. each carrier accepts sms traffic for any other carriers' customers during
an emergency (we see something like this for emergency 000 calls now)


 phillip

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