Tsunami Relief ICT Update, March 29
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A major earthquake with an estimated strength of 8.5 occurred
off the west coast of Sumatra on Monday morning, March 28,
at 8:09 a.m. Pacific Standard Time (Monday night 11:09 p.m.
local time in Sumatra; 16:09 UTC - Greenwich). See http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsww/Maps/10/95_5.html.
For current NOAA updates, see http://www.prh.noaa.gov/ptwc/wmsg.
We were alerted by Jonathan Thompson of International
Medical Corps shortly after the earthquake. Jon wrote
over Skype
IM: "It was rolling for a good 5 minutes.
Everyone ran out on the street." IMC had no injuries in Medan, but they
are unable to get voice communications to Banda Aceh. We have notified several
NGOs, who are attempting to get through to their relief teams.
Please check back for updates. |
Since December 26, we at HumaniNet have had
the privilege of supporting over 50 NGO field teams with mobile
communications in Indonesia and Sri Lanka.
If your organization needs assistance with field communications,
please email us at info@humaninet.org.
Please bookmark and revisit this page periodically for current
updates on relief communications:
VSAT in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. PACTEC announced that it now
has two emergency communications centers in operation in Indonesia
providing support for tsunami relief workers. The centers are
located in United Nations Base Camps in Banda Aceh and Meulaboh.
Both centers, referred to as Internet Cafés, use Very
Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) satellite systems to provide high-speed
Internet data and voice services for relief workers. The Cafés
can also offer long range wireless LAN links to other organizations
and individual aid workers within 20km of the centers. For more
information and pictures, please click
here and note the links at the bottom.
- RBGAN coverage excellent in Sri Lanka, but not in
Indonesia. Reports from several NGOs in Sumatra indicate
that the RBGAN is no longer reliable in this region. One NGO
reports that the two RBGANs that were connecting earlier in January
are no longer connecting. Please contact us for other options for email from this region.
- RBGANs and Iridium phones available at no cost. Please email
us at info@humaninet.org if you need voice and/or email in
the disaster areas.
- Thanks to a generous donor, NGOs responding to the crisis
can purchase Iridium minutes (airtime) at half price, or USD
.70 per minute (minimum 500 minutes). Email info@humaninet.org for details.
- Also note that data kits for email on Iridium 9500 and 9505a
models are now available.
- See our Satellite
Communications page for details on Iridium
phones and RBGAN terminals.
- Callers to Iridium phones may send 160-character
messages to the user of the phone. See our Iridium
Tips page for details on this and two-stage dialing – you can
call a U.S. number to connect to an Iridium phone anywhere.
- CGNET and iPass have reduced their prices for roaming
Internet access to CGNET's
nonprofit customers who are providing relief and rebuilding
services to the victims of December's disastrous earthquake
and tsunami in the Indian Ocean. The free service and reduced
prices will apply to usage in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India,
Thailand and Malaysia.
- Conference calls are often essential for relief coordination.
If your organization needs a way to conference with team
members in Asia economically, please contact
us.
- For health
and medical ICT support for disaster relief, see the Satellife
home page.
We are grateful to the following organizations for their generous
assistance and support of partner NGOs since December 26:
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