Govt. Satellite Service Procurement Needs Fixing, 6 Months After Katrina
The satellite industry may have been key to the recovery after hurricanes smashed terrestrial telecom infrastructure in 2005, but govt. emergency communication procurement processes don’t reflect that, satellite industry officials lamented Thurs. at Satellite 2006. FCC Chmn. Martin admitted satellite communication’s importance in disasters in Hill testimony, but at the Homeland Security Dept. and other agencies, “nobody’s home” when it comes to procurement, industry officials said at the conference, sponsored by Via Satellite magazine.
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“DHS is letting contracts for communications, but so far none of those dollars are directed at [satellite],” Intelsat Vp-Govt. Affairs Richard DalBello said. Other communications providers are getting billions, DalBello said. So far, the satellite industry has 2 spots on the FCC’s Hurricane Katrina panel. “We need to see what else we can do,” he said.
Officials from mobile and fixed satellite services firms agreed govt. emergency communications procurement is sub-par. A historic disconnect between the satellite industry and the Defense Dept. stems from industry’s preference for multi-year capacity deals and a tendency of DoD bandwidth demands to be both heavy and ad hoc. And it isn’t proving any easier to buy satellite communication (satcom) for civil agencies in the name of disaster readiness, industry officials said.
Iridium and kindred firms want federal and state funding for satellite phones to aid in disaster relief and border security, said Ted O'Brien, vp-channel development. Progress is being made, he said: “But we still haven’t seen a significant impact on procurement even after all of this -- and in all these years satellite hasn’t been as visible to the public as it is now.” Competitor Globalstar also is active on the Hill, mostly on state procurement issues, said Vp-Govt. Sales Walt Gorman. “State officials still don’t know how to get satellite phones. They say they'll wait until they get FEMA money… for it, and then they'll call you,” Gorman said: “But I say, ‘How are you gonna call me in the first place if the terrestrial infrastructure is down?'”
Bills emerging on Capitol Hill could help get alternative communications tools in place before disaster strikes. “But the legislation isn’t always calling out for satellite as an option,” Hughes Network Systems Vp-Regulatory & International Affairs Joslyn Read said: “We need a better procurement process for preparedness.”
The quickest communications fix, which could be achieved by hurricane season, is a “purely political one,” O'Brien said. Several satellite executives bemoaned that “nobody’s in charge” of coordinating communications networks in the field during disasters. “Somebody has to be there to establish the communications architecture… That’s probably the only practical solution we'll have in the next 10 years,” O'Brien said.
But on the ground, emergency responder credentialing has proven a major obstacle, literally adding insult to injury. Cable, telco, broadcast and wireless representatives at the FCC’s first Hurricane Katrina Panel meeting all mentioned their inability to get engineers and installers into disaster areas for lack of proper credentials. “Tech teams who were part of the recovery effort had to leave the disaster area at curfew,” said Read. And those were the engineers who could get in in the first place, she said.
“It’s important that we get through and get credentialed to be considered first responders,” said Read. The Satellite Industry Assn. (SIA) is working on the issue, she said: “We're still at the early stages, but we're working intensely on it.” Read was recently named 2006 SIA Chairperson. But even if credentialing is straightened out in Washington, that doesn’t necessarily mean it will be fixed in the field, other panelists said.