We had the same experience twice from ex-tropical cyclone depressions. In fact ABC TV goes off the air in heavy downpours. I rang up and asked them about the absence of ABC TV (radio signals are more robust coming from a closer studio)… I was told that they knew their transmitter was weak, and needed upgrading, but couldn’t afford to do it due to the funding cuts. They said that ABC radio was THE emergency communications, so as long as that worked they were meeting their obligations.
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Having had responsibility for a particular warning system for a few years it c an be amazing how justifications are made to do nothing with ever less. Government accounts for dollars but the concept of disaster costs and lives does not fit into its spread sheets, and voila, the ABC told you how it is, that is how it has been for many years under libertarian minded governments, not that the alternative could step in to reverse the ‘voter psychology’ about surpluses now.
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The usual mantra is “doing more with less”. The reality being that Totalitarian Capitalist governments will cut funding, precipitating the inevitable failure, then exploit that failure to justify privatisation.
Along the lines of:
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Hard to maintain emergency communications when grubs are stealing the equipment.
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Project Loon even … they’ve flown over .au but at the moment all appear to be in central/south America …
While not primarily for voice from what I have read, VoIP would probably work fine …
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There’s an Australian company called Beam Communications which has just launched a small hand-held device called ZOLEO which allows users to communicate via SMS from literally anywhere in the world using satellite, WiFi and cellular. It also has SOS messaging. They say that it’s going to sell for $349. On the face of it, it sounds ideal for situations such as @meltam is describing here.
Two disclaimers. 1) My information comes from the company’s own ASX announcement, so I can’t vouch for the product itself except to say that the claims make it sound pretty good.
2) I own a parcel of shares in Beam Communications, purely as a private investor. Beyond that, I have no involvement with the company or the product in question. I do notice though that the shares have gone for a bit of a run over the past few days. Maybe it’s due to others seeing the same potential for the product.
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So the notion of handheld devices which are a text only version of a sat phone for emergency service support might be a more general solution. Without a general voice service which you get with a standard sat phone? There may be some other advantages, as we can typically send and receive SMS where the signal cannot reliably support voice service.
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It sounds good, especially if it had GPS co-ords built in to the tranmitted SOS information.
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According to the blurb; " Send an SOS alert with 24/7 emergency monitoring and dispatch included (provided by GEOS)." I take it that means it includes information re the location.
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Some folks on the ground chime into the issue. The NBN is not fit for purpose of critical communications - what a surprise. I wonder if MT who is supposed to have been one of the top coalition technical geniuses had a clue. (no need to answer, it is obvious he was nothing but a money man who did well in tech, not a technical anything and least of all a visionary, although he probably had more vision than the rest of his former lot).
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No system is impervious, but some are less -errr- pervious.
One of the many things that disgusts me is that we’re being told that it’s too expensive to replace existing underground copper with underground fibre. Most of the cost is in the digging and fibre is cheaper than copper. Replacement would actually cost less than the original installation.
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Part of the problem was the way the government and NBN Co approached delivery of the NBN.
There was an assumption that the changeover needed to be seamless. It is very straight forward to rip out copper, modify pits and conduits as needed and pull in replacement services (Eg Fibre). Not an option apparently?
Anyway, the real contracted costs of the NBN and any open cost assessment are lost from the public gaze. The NBN Co is a private enterprise and the real detailed expenditures ‘Commercial in confidence’.
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Leaving out transmission degradation due to particulates, can anybody tell me it is possible in principle to fireproof phone and other communications equipment? It seems in some cases the gear burned in others the power went off. Is it impossible to prevent these problems or is it a commercial decision that it is judged the cost would be prohibitive? If the latter has any cost-benefit analysis of the decision been published?
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Nothing is totally fireproof, you leave a hot enough fire for long enough nearly everything is burnt. But to fireproof communications from bushfires is possible but requires proper funding to do so. There may be a cost benefit analysis done in the past but would in all likelihood be Commercial in Confidence from Telstra’s era. There are some communications exchanges that are fire rated including the one in Inala Qld as it is in close proximity to houses in a suburban area.
Towers for Fixed Wireless and mobile communications are much harder to harden for fire protection but cabling is obtainable in fire resistant levels but it is very expensive to get the highest level rated cable. Dishes, steel girders, aluminum, plastic, and rubber (both natural and synthetic) are prone to fire damage and to weather proof connections and lighten the structures these materials are incorporated making it hard to provide resilient protection required for the exposure time. The electronics and backup power required for these towers can be built into underground bunkers but costs go very high to do so both for reasons of building but also the cooling and ventilation needed because of the enclosed space a bunker involves. The best choice in building towers is to ensure a very wide clearance from bush eg several hectares of clearance, thus a lot of land would be denuded.
While the following are not all about communications some still reference parts about keeping communications available during fire events.
https://www.olex.com.au/eservice/Australia-en_AU/navigate_345713/Fire_resistant_cables.html
http://www.icsindustries.com.au/products/equipment-buildings/fire-rated-shelters
http://www.firestopping.com.au/
Regulations regarding Building Codes that also references Fire Safety requirements:
Overseas developed Cost Benefit Analysis of Fire Risk Reduction
http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:962363/FULLTEXT01.pdf
CBA of Bushfire Mitigation for Australia
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Not directly attributable to the fires, but related:
Comments from an old-timers’ mailing list:
and:
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An article regarding the need for a national emergency communications network.
And an article which mentions the fire which destroyed the Bulk Sugar Terminal in Townsville in 1963.
https://www.townsville-port.com.au/about/port-history/
An extract from the article.
"This disastrous fire in 1963, which lasted for five days, required the assistance of fire fighters as far away as Cairns, Innisfail, Proserpine, nearby sugar mills, the Australian Defence Force and the visiting US destroyer USS Somers before it was extinguished. The cost of the fire was estimated to be £6 million, with 77,500 tonnes of sugar lost.
After the sugar terminal disaster, fire authorities throughout Queensland worked towards standardising all fire equipment in the state. Firefighting equipment was also installed in sugar storage terminals to mitigate the risk of the disaster being repeated."
After Qld learned the hard way some 57 years ago, what a disgrace that emergency communications and equipment was not standardised nationwide.
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I changed the title to reflect the topic is relevant as was, but there are other aspects of emergency communications people are just recognising. This report reflecting what some people erroneously believe vs reality. When there is no signal, there is no signal regardless of what the mobile displays.
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Possibly also a timely reminder that a functioning and/or applied handbrake could obviate the need for emergency services ? not having a dig at the gentleman involved as such, there’s not one of us who hasn’t misjudged something at some point in our lives, but sometimes simple situations go south very quickly and unexpectedly - there was a time not that long ago that isolation and/or lack of any form of communication was a clear and present concept and one behaved (more or less) accordingly - one wonders if these days we are more reliant on ‘rescue’ than ‘prevention’ …
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This story could be a candidate for the Darwin Awards except for the fact that he survived. Perhaps the investment in an EPIRB unit if he travels in remote areas would be wise. And a basic driving course to learn about parking.
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