MARITIMES SCANNING SITE

SATCOLT

Last updated November 17, 2006

© 2006, MARITIMES SCANNING SITE, all rights reserved

SATCOLT is recent innovation in North America (2006) promoted by Sprint Nextel in the USA and Telus in Canada.   The acronym stands for Satellite Cellsite on Light Truck.  Essentially this is a million dollar truck mounted mobile cell, trunk and conventional site that is available to be driven or flown to wherever it is needed in the event of a disaster or other major incident.   It is being promoted especially to public services agencies in areas where they do not already enjoy an acceptable level of interoperability.  No doubt this has been prompted by communications deficiencies seen in light of Hurricane Katrina and 9-11.   Most parts of North America have unacceptably poor abilities for emergency agencies to speak to one another directly.   In addition there is the possibility of overload of the regular cell and repeater systems.   

One of the documents linked below states that this vehicle and its equipment will rent for $10,000 per day.   Not only does it include the satellite links and mobile cellsite and trunk site, it also includes the portable radios to be used with it at or around the scene.

Here in Canada it would appear that there are two of these units, one based in British Columbia and one in Ontario, but able to go where needed.   In fact, there are 800 MHz frequencies already allocated here in the Maritimes in case of use here.    It is not clear how valuable the SATCOLT would be here as the three provinces, especially Nova Scotia, already have good to excellent interoperability capabilities, but there certainly exists the possibility of an overload at any particular site.

Please refer to the links below for more information.  The first one, a PowerPoint, is a must-see!   If you have comments or corrections to anything I have said above, please email me at marscan1@canada.com    

SATCOLT frequencies for the Maritimes, as listed in TAFL.   These may or may not be accurate and/or incomplete.  As you no doubt realize these would only be active in a case of SALTCOT coming to the region, and in any event, it is possible that they would be encrypted.

854.9125         New Brunswick and Nova Scotia
855.1625         New Brunswick and Nova Scotia
855.4125        New Brunswick and Nova Scotia
855.6625        New Brunswick and Nova Scotia
855.9125        New Brunswick and Nova Scotia
855.9625        New Brunswick and Nova Scotia (this one may be incorrect, not in the expected sequence)

862.7125        Nova Scotia
862.9625        Nova Scotia
863.2125        Nova Scotia

861.3875        New Brunswick
861.6375        New Brunswick
861.8875        New Brunswick
866.6375        New Brunswick
866.8175        New Brunswick simplex

862.6625        Prince Edward Island
862.9125        Prince Edward Island
863.1625        Prince Edward Island
863.4125        Prince Edward Island
863.6625        Prince Edward Island
864.0625        Prince Edward Island
864.3125        Prince Edward Island
864.5625        Prince Edward Island

Information about SATCOLT:

Telus PowerPoint presentation, with excellent photos of truck and equipment:  http://www.rabc.ottawa.on.ca/e/Files/Colin%20Belshaw%20RABC%202005%20ERS.ppt

Telus press release:  http://www.telusmobility.com/about/press_room/releases/20050822_Satcolt.html

Another Telus release:  http://business.telus.com/en_CA/content/pdf/whyTELUS/News/safety_net_satcolt.pdf

Truck photo and short explanation: http://www.flickr.com/photos/t6hawk/213808225/

Similar US Nextel SATCOLT info:  http://mrtmag.com/mag/radio_incident_management_forms/index.html