Wireless ISPs ready to heed call for help

About 8000 wireless ISPs are standing at the ready, prepared to provide voice over IP service to relief shelters around the country, at the direction of the Federal Communications Commission.

The FCC met Friday via a teleconference with the leadership of Part-15.org, an organization of spectrum-exempt wireless operators, as well as with executives from Cisco Systems, Intel Corp., Vonage and others, to explore how the wireless networks could be used to rapidly turn up communication services -- voice, data and video – to the shelters popping up around the country to house victims of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation in the Gulf Coast.

Since then, Part-15 has been working with its members to determine the availability of their equipment personnel, and is now awaiting the call.

Silicon Valley has also responded -- Cisco, Intel, SBC Dell and others have donated laptops and wireless access points. Vonage has reportedly donated 500 dual-port ATAs and, with Cisco, hundreds of SIP phones, as well as free VoIP service.

“It’s my understanding that the FCC is accumulating information and then providing not just that information but recommendations to FEMA and the American Red Cross,” said Michael Anderson, chairman of Part-15. “We have not yet been tasked. I believe and it is only my opinion – we are soon to be tasked. It could be significant in large numbers. There was conversations about 300-plus relief and support shelters popping up all over the U.S. Since we are located all over the U.S. – we’re downtown, we’re suburban, we’re rural and we are way out there in the boonies – we are in position to serve these shelters.”

The FCC got the ball rolling Friday, Anderson said, in an effort to use newer technology to provide service in times that are desperate for many people.

“They are trying to show alternative methods to the traditional way of doing things,” he said. “We can do this so more rapidly than the cellphone technologies. I’m not trying to indicate that those guys are less worthy. I’m just saying here’s an alternative – we can do it fast.” One Part-15 member is already provide communications to about 11 shelters north of New Orleans that were hastily assembled to give the hoards of people fleeing the city a place to be and the ability to communicate with their families, Anderson said.

According to Anderson and other sources familiar with last Friday's meeting, equipment vendors were asked to step up as well, and are expected to being donating gear.