DHS Sets Up Emergency Satellite Communication Service

The Department of Homeland Security’s Nation Communications System is launching a three-year project that could give both key government facilities and industry access to advanced satellite communication technologies during emergencies.

In an article on the Government Computer News website, William Jackson says the service, known as the Satellite Priority Service, will provide interoperable, nationwide push-to-talk radio and satellite phone service designed to be unaffected by local terrestrial conditions.

“Push-to-talk is incredibly spectrally effective,” Jim Corry, vice president of government solutions for Mobile Satellite Ventures, the company contracted to implement the technology, told Jackson. “It requires very little satellite resources to talk to a lot of people. Most important to NCS, the push-to-talk never touches the PSTN [the Public Switched Telephone Network that carries terrestrial telephone traffic.]”

According to Jackson, the satellite will act much like a repeater for a traditional radio in push-to-talk mode. “The signal is sent from a ground set to one of two MSV satellites in geosynchronous orbit over North America, which relays it to the ground station. There the network identifies the radio and the talk group being used, looks for other talk group members who are on the air, summons their radios to a common frequency, then sends the signal back up to a satellite and down to the radios of the talk group,” Jackson says.

The DHS will fund the pilot program, which will provide one ground set each to 65 critical facilities with three years of service. Participating facilities now are being identified by NCS and probably will include emergency operations centers for federal, state and local government agencies as well as critical infrastructure providers.

To read the full article, click here: http://www.gcn.com/online/vol1_no1/46309-1.html?topic=state-local