Reports from the US suggest that iridium mobile telephones are the only workable back-up communication medium for security teams in the event of a major emergency
Iridium satellite 'Phones have proven their worth as a 'last-resort' back-up communications system for security professionals – having performed as the only reliable telecoms network amidst the chaos and destruction wreaked by last September's terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

Once mocked for being ineffective and ludicrously expensive to run, the technology was vital in helping US security officials and emergency crews communicate with eachother and organise an immediate response to the tragedies that unfolded on 11 September.

Standard mobile telephones and landlines that relied on local infrastructures failed to connect during the crises, but the 66 iridium telephone satellites set up globally allowed effective communications between rescuers working in the rubble, security teams and police.

Following the attacks, demand for satellite 'phones Stateside has soared. Handset wholesaler Iridium Satellite has seen requests for its products quadruple, claiming that activation services are now 400% higher.

Stratos, another satellite 'phone retailer, would not reveal to SMT the exact number of devices sold in the wake of the World Trade Centre and Pentagon atrocities, but said that demand had "increased significantly" among the police and security agencies.

Aside from the technological plus-points, the cost of using such telephones is coming down. Although the price of an Iridium mobile is a whopping US$1,500, calls are now US$1.50 per minute compared with US$7 per minute when they were first introduced.

For its part, Iridium Satellite has recently submitted a proposal to the United States Federal Aviation Administration to introduce the satellite technology, allowing the downloading of voice and data information from an aircraft cockpit in real time – such that aircraft may be tracked and monitored throughout any given journey.

In turn, this would allow security agencies to react quicker to incidents, and save investigators precious time that is currently spent retrieving aeroplane black boxes (which only relate the final 30 minutes of data and voice prior to any crash).

Source

SMT