The Broadband Lifeline in a Pandemic: Strategies for Provisioning Broadband to Temporary Emergency Sites

I’ll describe a way for your community to meet ar  critical need – service to ad hoc emergency sites like surge hospital locations, triage centers, and even parking lots where mass testing or treatment may occur. And there will be a need for service to other ad hoc locations, like temporary housing sites for emergency and health care workers or national guard personnel. All of these will require broadband, fast, both for public needs and to support first responders and health care workers.

Your community can deliver an emergency state-of-the-art solution, quickly, like this: The first step is a building that is connected over your city- or county-owned fiber and that is within a couple of miles of the emergency location that needs service. Ideally, you will have line of sight from the building to the emergency location. A temporary mast and antenna mounted on the building rooftop can deliver a high bandwidth mmWave signal to a receiver at the emergency site. That receiver can be mounted at the site or in a mobile command vehicle owned by your jurisdiction.

[Andrew Afflerbach is CEO & CTO of CTC Technology & Energy]