ESTR-Com – Emergency Communication System

The Cost Factor – The least expensive answer is also the best

By covering the country with a network of these airborne transmitting planes (called Air-Towers) we can create a wireless mesh over the entire continental United States. The individual planes are modified long-loiter highly fuel-efficient FAA certified jets based on a Cessna Citation CJ1. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, keeping up to 250 of these planes in the air 24/7 is actually cheaper than any other alternative for providing complete continent wide coverage for any type of universal emergency services communication or broadcasting system. All other terrestrial based technologies (such as tower or structure transmitting) require far more money, time and resources (in terms of build-out to cover the whole country) than the Air-Tower system. Current estimates to build-out a tower based system are a minimum of $20 billion (and up to a decade or more to deploy). The actual costs are probably closer to $40 billion. Plus, maintenance costs on wireless tower equipment is significant and the problem of broadband backhaul presents even more cost. In fact, enhancing broadband capable backhaul (a necessary and unavoidable problem for all tower based systems whether using preexisting towers and infrastructure or new construction) introduces a new level of specific vulnerabilities for emergency services from the choke points created by new wireless network backhaul equipment. Space-based satellite systems are no better in terms of price and performance. Satellites cost upwards from $3-10 billion each and you need dozens of them. Plus, although space is infinite, the number of satellite parking spots is finite. Satellites (both by nature and spectrum limitation) also have the smallest total capacity of any type of wireless system or solution. When combined with the high total cost for deployment, satellites offer the least value to capacity ratio. By contrast, the Planet TV Air-Tower system will cost $6 billion to cover the entire continental United States. And it would only take six years to completely deploy. This puts 250 planes in permanent FAA approved ultra-high orbits over the country 24/7, including all metropolitan, rural and remote areas. In fact, in just the first two years from funding, the Air-Tower system will cover the top 50 population centers in the entire continent. The plane is so small at this altitude (41k feet) they are virtually invisible and totally silent. The planes fly on an eight hour shift (plus one hour out and one hour back to base) and there are three shifts of planes (3 x 8 = 24 hours a day coverage). This is 750 planes total – 250 in the air and 500 on the ground at all times. This number of planes and this type of traffic is not unusual for any national airline.

R3 Un-equaled Capabilities – Resistant, resilient, redundant

An airborne wireless mesh has unique and incomparable capability advantages over any terrestrial or space-based platform. First, any maintenance and repair issues will be detected and corrected each day because the planes are serviced for duty once every 24 hours and all service is in the normal aircraft hangar. Maintenance on a wireless tower is always a remote service, the most difficult and expensive kind of service. Maintenance or repair is a non-starter for satellites. Second and most importantly, the ESTR-Com system is the only system that is resistant up to a nuclear or EMP event, and the only guaranteed system that is resilient after a nuke or EMP. The reason for this capability has to do with the transient nature of the platform. Unlike both towers and satellites, which are permanent installations, the PTV Air-Tower planes are constantly cycling in and out of duty. The very nature of the system is based on multiple layers of backup. The system is like a very low-flying satellite constellation where the satellites are brought down to the ground every day. The Air-Tower planes fly at 41,000 feet altitude which is far above most weather and they can fly around anything that reaches into their orbit path by side-stepping up to nine miles from orbit center. At this height, a single plane can transmit to over 15,000 square miles, far greater than any land-based transmitter. Unlike satellites, which are based from several hundred to over 22,000 miles in altitude, the close position of the Air-Tower plane to the ground (41k feet) means the signals are not significantly affected by weather. And unlike terrestrial towers, nothing that happens on the ground can take the Air-Tower offline. It is this resistant, resilient and redundant capability that is fundamental as a national emergency communication network and is unique to the Air-Tower.

The Future of Emergency Communication – Currently in limbo

Here’s what’s happening now. Because of the failure to attract a large telecom interested in providing the emergency services broadband network in the summer of 2008, combined with the economic collapse last fall, and the administration change over the winter, the 700MHz project has been in limbo. During that time, rather than trying to come up with a solution to the entire problem, the major telecoms have been lobbying to have the project broken into regional pieces. They want to allow local governments to make individual deals to deploy an emergency services network with regional carriers (such as AT&T or Verizon). Not surprisingly, both AT&T and Verizon have been pushing their newest network protocols which will be on the new 4G network that each of them are building out – which are different of course.

In the words of one FCC insider, “It’s become a holy war of network technology.”

Unfortunately, the losers in this war will be emergency services personnel and first-responders if any of these “holy grail” 4G technologies is implemented. Because, no commercial network communication system can provide the required capabilities under extreme and large-scale emergency conditions (no matter what they say). But if history is an example, it will take ten years to prove that it doesn’t work. Then it will take another ten years to get the spectrum back. And during those twenty years, we will have an emergency services communication system that is just as susceptible to the threats mentioned in the beginning. And the giant telecoms will have made hundreds of billions of dollars over that time period from this spectrum. Also, if this nationwide spectrum is broken up, there will be no incentive to cover the wilderness portions of the country. And there may be no incentive to cover the rural sections of the country – just as there has been no incentive to provide broadband service to most rural communities. And the reason there won’t be any incentive is because their networks don’t cover these areas and customers now. Both AT&T and Verizon (as well as every other broadband provider) are building out their new network by overlaying it on their existing networks. They say after they have finished that, they will build new towers to cover the rest of the country. This is a long term promise backed by an industry with no history of fulfilling promises. And even if other telecoms tried to cover these areas, they couldn’t do it without digging cable trenches, stringing wires or planting radio towers all over the countryside. Plus, the cost of any other proposed system would start at three to four times the price of the PTV Air-Tower system and more likely be five to ten times as expensive.

$6 billion over six years versus $20 to $40 billion and decades.

ESTR-Com – The Only Communication System Capable of Withstanding Top-tier Threats

Most importantly, these other proposed plans will not have the ESTR-Com system which provides complete protection against failure from anything short of a nuke or EMP – and can bounce back in 27 minutes after a nuke or EMP (the time it takes for a new wave of planes to hit altitude). In fact, the civilian nuclear resilience capabilities are unmatched. In a true nuclear event emergency, all telephone, television, radio and internet transmitting towers will be taken offline by the EMP (electro-magnetic pulse). The extent of the EMP damage is directly related to the height of the explosion or pulse. Any device detonated over a metropolitan area would destroy all electronic devices far beyond the actual damage area. Modern tactical military theory says that a large scale attack on our country could be preemptively begun by a high-yield detonation of a device in orbit above the U.S. continent. This would disable all civilian communication satellites in addition to the continent wide destruction of active electronics. This is why all of the telecommunication systems will be taken offline in a nuke or EMP event. In fact, the government is currently designing and implementing the new nuclear-hardened Executive command communication system to replace the aging Cold War system that was decommissioned in the 1980’s. However, this system is only for the President and the military and perhaps some level of the federal government. No plans exist for a communication system for the general public. The complete coverage and nuclear resilient capabilities of the Air-Tower system offer a nationwide public address system that can be operated at any level from local (for extreme weather for instance) to the national level (for instructions or messages from the President after a nationwide disaster). However, PTV Air-Tower Planes can also broadcast television and radio to the entire continent. If the land-based stations go offline after a nuclear or EMP event, we can use their spectrum as part of the national information distribution capability (along with the Emergency Broadcast Channel). Tower transmitters (and satellites) will take decades to repair or replace. The Planet TV Air-Tower planes can be back into the air and at full super-cell transmitting capacity in only 27 minutes. Major areas covered by the center of the super-cell will have transmission capabilities in under 15 minutes. Few (if any) television or radio transmitter equipment is protected (or protect-able) against an EMP or nuke. No civilian or commercial satellite provider is shielded against a nuclear or EMP event. Our system allows the government (all the way up to the President) to speak directly to the civilian population after any large scale disaster up to and including a nuclear event. No other technology can offer this capability.

The Future Is Now – The opportunity is here

And this technology is not science fiction. The system exists right now and has hundreds of hours of testing and performance data to prove it works. The Air-Tower system is cheaper, faster to deploy and environmentally less-intrusive than any other alternative. Plus, it has a lower carbon footprint for build-out, operation and maintenance than any other potential system that has been developed to address this capability. Also, because the long-range highly fuel efficient jets fly at 41,000 feet and use the 700MHz spectrum to connect the ESTR-Com equipment with each other, they will outperform tower and satellite transmitting systems. Because at an altitude of 41,000 feet, the 700MHz spectrum (which is the same as the high UHF channels) has unique propagation characteristics that can reach deep into buildings, basements, valleys and even canyons. Neither satellites nor towers can equal this. Best of all, this system is independent of anything on the ground or any other network. If the internet goes down, it does not affect our system. If the phone systems (cell or landline) go down, if the power is disrupted, even if bombs are going off… our system is unaffected. Just like the military AWACS, our system sends and receives all communication through the private secure IP network riding on the wireless mesh covering the United States. The ESTR-Com uses technology and systems that are capable of functioning during anything up to and including war – because they were designed from the same systems that we actually use during war. Most importantly, short of a nuke or EMP, the system cannot be taken offline by anything… And the Air-Tower system is the only guaranteed system that is resilient after an EMP or nuclear event. Nothing in the commercial market even comes close.

Click here to continue reading about additional uses and business opportunities for the proposed U.S. ESTR-Com system by Planet TV.