I’m surprised this completely missed my radar. While reading the Commonwealth’s Statewide Communications Interoperability Plan the other day, I noticed that they made a reference to a broadband initiative on Cape Cod and the islands called OpenCape. This idea is for pushing a fiber solution out across the Cape and islands along with a Microwave backbone for backup. This peaked my interest for two reasons:
- I love me some speedy Internet
- It shows how far Amateur Radio is behind the times
OpenCape states on their “About us” page that:
The Cape, Islands and South Coast are the most vulnerable region in Massachusetts to natural disaster, such as a hurricane. Additionally, the region’s proximity to the Plymouth nuclear power plant adds to the region’s overall disaster risk. One of the lessons from Katrina and other major disasters is that communication infrastructure is key to both response and recovery.
Cape Cod lacks the robust and redundant system of communications it will need to respond to and recover from a natural or man-made disaster. Not only will the OpenCape network perform a daily economic role, but it will also serve as the redundant communications backbone in times of emergency.
This is eerily familiar to me as a south coastal Massachusetts amateur radio operator, as I’ve heard this same exact statement time and time again from people involved in Emergency Communications out on the Cape. There is no real link back to the rest of the state from the Cape and Islands. However, lets compare and contrast:
Faced with the same problem two groups came up with different solutions:
- Establish a “robust, high capacity communications infrastructure” both wired and wireless across the Cape
- Establish a 1200 baud VHF connection with WinLink.
I seem to be busting this out a lot lately:
OK, this isn’t a strict apples-to-apples comparison. I understand that the projects here are slightly different. OpenCape’s projected cost it $40 million while I’m sure the WinLink connection cost probably well under 0.1% of that. However, it demonstrates a disconnect between Amateur Radio and what the current environment is like for data connections. Today, everything short of my toaster is IP based. Existing infrastructure using IP is everywhere. What is Amateur radio still continuing to focus on? Kludges that keep bolting things on top of an outdated protocol that isn’t suited for today’s networks and then additional kludges to connect it back to the rest of the world.
OpenCape says that “Letters of support have been received from every town… Cape Cod and the Islands, police and fire chiefs associations…” which makes me wonder what exactly is going on out there. Are we squandering a valuable opportunity for deploying HSMM links on an intra and inter-town basis? While I’m not a fan of the “EmComm for the sake of EmComm” that a lot of ARES and RACES folks fall into, this would be a great way to “sell” amateur radio. If someone said to a Cape Cod based fire/police/EMA “Hey, I think I can give you an IP link off cape for short money that would continue to work during a disaster” I’d be shocked if there were no interest. If that goes well, what about then start setting up a mesh network between towns? Part 97 gives us tremendous leeway on 2.4GHz and there is ways to upgrade consumer equipment for cheap money. For the love of pete, how can we not do this?
Instead of keeping up with the times we are focusing on our 1200 baud links and getting left in the dust while people are beating us with better designed data networks. Data networks that are designed to work during disasters. Then, we wonder why the hobby is suffering.
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Nice, but when the chips are down, a link that has near 100% uptime for a statewide area network over a 5-10 year period without more than 3 – 5 year visits, I would say the ability to transfer data and emcomm at 1200 baud kicks ass on the needs constant upkeep and low coverage techniques of other schemes. Sorry to say that you think the hobby is dead, but I think text messaging and other quick low bandwidth ways to communicate (think twitter et all) is the way to be useful.
Link for you:
http://www.14567.org
It is full of d-star, but it links old with new!
Posted by Kelly on September 22nd, 2009.
Hey…You can always put up a 3.5Ghz amateur only network using the Ubiquiti Networks NS3 and mesh software..only $87 a radio.
http://www.ubnt.com/downloads/ns3_ds.pdf
….but they have not started production yet! If they ever will..
Posted by Steve on September 23rd, 2009.
@Kelly
The question is, what would be better, a 1200 baud non-IP link or a (on the very low end) 1Mbps IP based link? I’ve used consumer grade APs on a Part 15 basis at client sites that “just work” (some going on 7+ years) There’s nothing suggesting that we couldn’t do the same.
The 14567 link is interesting. They’re at least “pushing the envelope” in certain areas, and while I think DSTAR should wither on the vine (another posting for another day), I’m glad to see some honest-to-goodness experimentation going on. I fully agree with their “report card” assessment too. But, to further my point, in 2001, they opted to deploy a 1200 baud non IP-based data network rather then trying to be forward thinking and looking at 9600 and 56Kb links. Also, 1996 called, they want their website back. (Tounge Firmly in Cheek!)
Also, I’ll fully admit, even my solution isn’t going to “save” emergency communications as we are seeing more and more resiliency built into existing systems that are design to survive major incidents.
Posted by Ben Jackson on September 23rd, 2009.
@Steve
Words cannot describe how much I love Ubiquiti networks. I think that whenever the NS3 rolls out, it’s going to be very interesting for HSMM, as it’s not going to have to deal with the high noise floor the Part 15 devices are creating down on 2.4GHz.
When they come out, I think I’m going to start poking at the head of my club’s technical committee to possibly buy some equipment and pop it on the club’s 85ft tower. If that works, well, maybe we could start working with EMAs in the area and establish a network of some sort.
Posted by Ben Jackson on September 23rd, 2009.
You seem to forget……power goes out, cell towers are jammed, so amateur radio is the only fail safe communications. When all else fails, amateur radio works.
Posted by Jason on April 27th, 2010.
Disagree. Properly designed networks can sustain a major failure. Plus, a lot of amateur radio operators would also have the same failings as official radio services during a large scale disaster. The only “secret sauce” for amateur radio is our distributed nature. Nothing much else (Irony: Hams making their oh-so-cool “mobile communications centers” they love to show off that suffer the same single point of failure as the radio services we’re meant to “back up”)
Perfect recent example in our neck of the woods was the flooding in RI. Large area affected, power outages, normal civilian communications paths disrupted, however RISCON kept ticking away no problem handling all communications in and out of the area for public safety.
Also, by focusing on 30 year old technology, we’re doing nothing to further our cause. Even if we want to push the “when all else fails” mantra, are we pushing something that works, but serves no useful purpose for 90% of the people who would use us? So, keep telling yourself that we’re relevant and keep doing your RACES training, but we’ll fade into obscurity if we keep putting our eggs in the EmComm basket.
Posted by Ben Jackson on April 27th, 2010.