Broadband Global Area Network

I attended the Wellington launch of NZ coverage for Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) services. Inmarsat (who own and launched the BGAN network) and Wrights (who provide satellite technology in NZ) provided some presentations followed by a hands on demonstration of the Thrane Explorer units that provide the voice and data access to the inmarsat satellites.

BGAN coverage has been extended to New Zealand following the launch last year of an additional Inmarsat 4 satellite that meant that the orbits of all three satellites could be reconfigured to provide global coverage. BGAN is mature well proven technology that has been available for a number of years in the rest of the world so it's great to finally have a range of options for satellite broadband in NZ.


A whole host of agencies and companies attended the launch including 'business as usual' customers who have remote monitoring data requirements as well as a range of emergency services and civil defence organisations from as far away as Canterbury, as well as some private companies and media.

The base station kit seemed to do what it said on the tin, all of the units are easily portable and have slightly varying data rates but essentially all support VOIP and data.

As this photo shows WebEOC loaded fine on the smallest base station - it would be good to do some more in depth testing especially with the Emergeo GIS Smart Client.

As well as the usual VOIP, data and streaming video capability it seems someone else had already had my bright idea and as an add-on unit you can establish a picocell within an Emergency Operations Centre in order to allow staff to continue to use their mobile phones even if the land-based mobile phone network is inoperable.

A number of agencies have already bought BGAN base stations in anticipation of coverage becoming available so it will be great to see the first domestic agencies deploying a similar capability to that which I saw Hutt Valley Emergency Management have with IPSTAR a couple of months ago.

I think as the importance of resilient data communications is recognised we will see agencies employing a range of options from ISDN, fibre, microwave, digital radio data, BGAN and IPSTAR depending on bandwidth and deployability requirements.



As an 'EOC in a bag' it would be hard to beat a BGAN, ruggedised laptop, mini printer and mini-data projector, unless you had something like this 4*4 complete with a satellite tracking dish on the roof and a wireless network to establish your VOIP, live video streaming and data links. Whilst this may seem far fetched setups like this are an established capability for many agencies overseas and need appropriate consideration.

Satellite broadband options

Martin Davis and I, together with Murray Halbert, the Emergency Management Manager from Hutt Valley DHB, caught up with the team at Hutt Valley Emergency Management Office to view what they have put in place with IP-Star satellite broadband.

Now ideally every EOC would run a local version of their emergency management software meaning that even if all communication links are severed the system is still available locally within the EOC. Of course the downside of this is that you would not be able to share that information with anybody outside of the EOC.

Consequently we are exploring options to get local health EOCs back on the net as quickly as possible after a severe disaster.

There are a number of options out there for emergency managers to think about from digital radio to BGAN but none of these are currently live in New Zealand- we were keen to see IP-Star in action (as it is one of the current options available).

IP star is a geo-stationery system and consists of a satellite dish about the same size as a Sky Dish, and a modem to plug into it. You also need to think about additional wireless routers or hubs and a power supply, especially if it is a portable solution.

HVEMO have made a number of refinements to their set-up over the last year or so, especially their deployable kit following its use in a number of land Search and Rescue and Rural Fire incidents. They have two dishes; one roof mounted above their EOC and the other palletised in a waterproof case. The size of the dish and stand (about 0.8m) makes it fairly bulky but the portable kit is certainly deployable by vehicle and can be carried into final position. The various components could also be broken down and 'man-packed' if required.

The kit contains everything they need to set up a remote EOC or Incident Control Point and connect it to the internet. A small portable printer, power supply and inverter, Wireless modems and a dedicated Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) handset suitable for big fingers complete the set-up.

The March 2008 MCDEM E-Bulletin contains further details http://www.civildefence.govt.nz/memwebsite.nsf/wpg_URL/For-the-CDEM-Sector-E-Bulletin-E-bulletin-March08?OpenDocument

I tested WebEOC over the connection and despite the latency (about 900ms - the delay for the signal to reach the satellite and return) once a page had loaded and any java script been cached it was perfectly usable.

During a disaster multiple connectivity options are the key and I doubt there is one ideal solution. I have seen command posts running on a range of systems - the key is to have the capability in place and exercised it before hand. I am looking forward to getting my hands on a BGAN set for a play when it goes live shortly.