Restoring cellular service to Puerto Rico
Question: How long does it take to restore cellular service to a stricken area?
Answer: Only as long as it takes to wheel this UAV flying cell tower to that area.
Necessity is the mother of invention
Mark Zuckerberg once said…
“A lot of people think that innovation is just having your great idea. But a lot of it is just moving quickly and trying a lot of things.”
AT&T has done just that with the creation their cell on wings (COW) aerial platform just in time for use in Puerto Rico post hurricane Maria.
http://about.att.com/inside_connections_blog/flying_cow_puertori
AT&T has also teamed with Alphabet and T-Mobile to experiment with balloon born cellular equipment.
Conclusion
There’s nothing quite like a disaster to propel innovation. Developments such as this flying cell system are a great boon to restoring connectivity for disaster victims. This, thankfully, greatly reduces the long term need for amateur radio health and welfare communications. Every amateur radio operator should welcome such technological leaps with the understanding amateur radio still has a role to play for very short term messaging moments after the disaster.
