Wilson (N.C.) Fire Rescue often has served as a beta-test agency for new GIS technology. On a recent road trip, I visited Wilson and found that GIS isn’t the mid-sized suburban department’s only innovation.

Chief Don Oliver offered to let me stay in the fire department’s VIP suite, a new concept to me. Oliver said that when the central fire station was flooded several years ago during a hurricane, the department turned an office into a small guest suite. The suite has given Oliver an economical way to invite instructors and chiefs from all over the country to visit and teach a course. Staying in the station also offers informal time with department personnel. The suite’s guest book includes signatures of Chief Billy Goldfeder, NFFF Executive Director Ron Siarnicki and Chief Ron Coleman.

Staying in the station also gave me a chance to see for myself exactly how Wilson’s GIS technology works for the department. The department first showed interest in GIS after a hurricane flooded many areas of the city. Department leaders were surprised to hear that the city’s planning department knew ahead of time what areas would flood. They began discussing options to share the information among the city’s agencies; consequently, ESRI became involved and began using Wilson as a test site.

I noticed a couple things during my tour of the station that I had not seen in other stations: a round conference table (“Works better for staff meetings,” Oliver said), signage on doors prohibiting turnout gear in living quarters; and security systems on doors to both living areas.

Another purpose of my visit was to see Wilson’s new Fire & Life Safety Adventure House for a future article. The department purchased a small house next to its central station and converted it to a multi-purpose education facility. Firefighters did the work themselves, and the facility offers a broad range of instruction for youngsters, senior citizens and the community at large. In fact, Oliver had local businesses visit the house, including members of a homebuilders association, and said they were blown away by the live-fire demonstration that is extinguished by a working sprinkler head.

Wilson runs a tight training program in conjunction with a local college and offers students an opportunity to stay in fire stations and attend classes to continue their education. He told me they have students from across the country attending the training programs.

Dinner in the station with the B shift also offered an opportunity to talk to the firefighters about their work. No visit to a fire station is complete without a firefighter prank. This one involved an unsuspecting baker’s pineapple cake and liquid soap. The frosting, however, was perfect.

While I have my own scanner and I’m used to the tones, I must admit I did a good job of falling back asleep after the tones went down for several calls during the night.

There is a 30-minute overlap in shift change and for morning checks of each vehicle and the equipment, including the testing of each saw on the rigs. “If we don’t test each one, how can we trust it will start when we need it on a call?” a young lieutenant said.

On a tour of the other four stations and the training facility, I asked the firefighters if they realized how progressive Wilson really is? Based on their response, I don’t think they knew. I do.

Imagine that you’re the lead rescue planner for an event that has attracted more than 100,000 people. Then imagine that, sometime during that event, sensors indicate a possible anthrax contamination. That’s exactly the situation Tom Shannon, the current chief of the Salt Lake City Fire Department, found himself in nearly two years ago.

At the time, Shannon was the assistant fire chief for the city of Glendale, Ariz., which was hosting the Super Bowl in February 2008. Shannon was the liaison to the NFL, was responsible for credentialing and tracking hundreds of firefighters and emergency medical technicians, and was tasked with ensuring that those first responders performed in compliance with the National Incident Management System.

I recently spoke with Shannon about how mobile-data devices and applications are being used effectively by public safety during large-scale events and incidents.

Midway through the first half of the Super Bowl, an air-monitoring system indicated the presence of anthrax. At halftime, another positive indication occurred. There were 80,000 people inside the stadium and another 30,000 or so milling outside the building. So, the decision to execute a mass evacuation was no light matter.

“Before you pull that trigger … you need to authenticate all the data you’re getting,” Shannon said. “You need to ask, ‘Is this real, is this real, is this real?’”

Fortunately, it was learned that the air-monitoring system had indicated a false positive, so no one inside or outside the stadium was at risk. The key to it all was the ability to check other sources via the mobile-data system and share that data across myriad agencies. “That was huge. We were able to put off what really could have been a pretty sizeable event of mass prophylaxis,” Shannon said.

With all due respect to the chief, I think they put off an evacuation that would have resulted in mass chaos, not just in the greater Phoenix area, but across the country. Can you imagine having to evacuate 110,000 people? And can you imagine the strain on the communications infrastructure, both commercial and public safety, if such an event had occurred?

More chilling is what might have transpired if the mobile-data system had not been in place. In such a scenario, there would have been no way to quickly determine whether the reading was real. If the threat was a hoax, that could have resulted in an unnecessary evacuation that would have put tens of thousands at risk of injury. Worse, if the threat proved to be real, the necessary evacuation could have been delayed, risking hundreds or thousands more taking ill or dying.

Early in 2007, the International Association of Fire Chiefs alerted its members to reports that the digital handsets used in many new radio systems were incompatible with the ambient noise frequently found in most fireground situations, including alarms from breathing apparatus and nearby chainsaws.

These anecdotal reports were largely confirmed in an IAFC report released last year that detailed the outcome of several objective tests on the subject conducted in 2007 and 2008 by the National Institute of Standards & Technology/National Telecommunications & Information Administration laboratory in Boulder, Colo. Three types of systems — 25 KHz analog, P25 full rate and P25 enhanced full rate (12.5 KHz analog was tested on a limited basis) — were tested in nine environments.

All systems tested met National Fire Protection Association standards of 80% intelligibility when no SCBA masks or background noise was involved. In addition, all systems failed to deliver intelligible communications in four of the nine fireground environments tested. However, when a firefighter uses an SCBA mask or personal alerting safety system, digital systems often were not as intelligible as analog systems, according to the NTIA report.

News of the tests spread like wildfire — pardon the pun — within the first-responder community. Many firefighting departments and unions brought the test results to attention of elected officials. In some cases, plans to migrate to a digital radio system were put on hold; more often, firefighters demanded that analog communications be used on the fireground until digital radios were proven to deliver intelligibility that is at least as good as analog.

In Saginaw County, Mich., the county conducted a test that demonstrated that the statewide radio network — a digital system—was as intelligible on the fireground as the county’s existing analog system before switching operations to the digital system.

Meanwhile, since the digital-radio issues were brought to the forefront, the vendor community has moved quickly. During the past year, Motorola and Harris RF have demonstrated the benefits of noise-cancellation features and other techniques leveraged in their new multiband radios in their trade-show booths. Meanwhile, digital vocoder technology continues to improve.

Despite the improvements, no vendor representative has made the bold claim that the digital-radio issue for the fireground has been resolved, only that progress is being made. While that seems apparent, such progress needs to be formally measured to get clear the air among many firefighters that digital radios are not as good as analog radios.

Some in the industry believe a new set of NIST/NTIA tests should not be done until digital radios begin including the new vocoder that DVSI is expected to release later this year. While the exact timing of the tests is debatable, it seems that an update to the tests conducted two years ago in a fast-moving portion of the industry is needed.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate just announced the 14 lead organizations that will participate in the testing and evaluation phase of the multiband radio project. It’s the final step before manufacturers start inundating the marketplace with their own version of the radio. The eventual widespread availability of the radios makes me wonder: If multiband radios hit the market next year and public-safety agencies nationwide adopt them, why do we need to build out a broadband, public-safety network?

I’ve seen an early version of the multiband radio from Thales Communications, which was demonstrated nearly at the 2008 International Wireless Communications Expo. The Thales radio has been used throughout the pilot because the company landed a hefty $6.275 million DHS contract to develop it. The radio operates in the 136–174 MHz, 360–400 MHz, 402–420 MHz, 450–512 MHz, 700 MHz and 800 MHz frequencies — letting command-and-control personnel communicate across bands during a large-scale, cross-jurisdictional incident. The radio also is capable of tapping into to other channels, such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s weather channel. As a result, it has the capability to be the crucial technology to solve the nation’s communication interoperability issues.

The radios seem to solve the issue of interoperability.  They work across frequencies and agencies. It’s a technology that can be used now for cross-agency communications without public-safety folks waiting and waiting for D.C. insiders and the FCC to work out the details of a nationwide, broadband public-safety network. But Dr. David Boyd — director of command, control and interoperability for the directorate — disagreed with me, saying he doesn’t believe multiband radios will make the buildout of the network obsolete. Instead, it helps with the migration from one type of network to another.

"This becomes the bridge device [to interoperability]. So if you are going to build out a public safety network you would expect commanders and so on to want a multiband radio for the build-out so they can communicate with the new network as they build it out," Boyd said. "And, interesting enough, it would let users work between the new and the old network as it is happening."

Boyd said the final pilot will test how the radio can be used in day-to-day operations. After the pilot program, the DHS expects the data to be used in two ways: Industry will use it to determine areas of improvement on their version of the multiband radio and users will be able to look at the key lessons learned from the pilot program. Results will be documented at the conclusion of the test, and all findings and lessons learned will be published in a report that is expected to be posted on the SAFECOM program Web site in early 2010, Boyd said.

But I still wonder: Once public-safety agencies get their hands on a multiband radio, will they still clamor for a public-safety network or will they let it go as yet another bureaucratic debacle that’s years from fruition? Only time will tell.

What do you think? Tell us in the comment box below.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how FDNY Chief Salvatore Cassano’s life has changed since the establishment of a state-of-the-art fire department operations center in its headquarters in Brooklyn. The new center means Cassano no longer goes to an incident. Instead, he leads his teams remotely using a cadre of wireless technology to support his decision-making.

Some readers said the chief now sits in “an ivory tower” while firefighters hit the ground running. First of all, the chief is a 40-year veteran of the department. He’s been on the job fighting fires — and putting his life on the line — long before the security of modern technologies, including two-way radio and communications systems.

In fact, firefighters didn’t always have access to such technologies. Old-school techniques were used instead. It reminds me of stories told to me by my father, a retired Chicago Fire Department lieutenant, about the communication systems he used when he was first on the job.

“We just yelled out to each other,” he told me. “It was a very reliable system.”

FDNY’s move to have its chief run incidents remotely isn’t about hierarchy. It is about using technology to fill in operational gaps. The whole point of the FDOC is to increase the amount of voice and data communications throughout the fire department. It acts as the communications nerve center that lets the FDNY monitor operations at its 198 engine and 143 ladder companies. Cassano said it is used for both day-to-day and command-and-control operations for large-scale emergency incidents. Data transmitted over secure phone lines and computers are viewed on a wall-mounted, curved-screen panel where commanders review video and other data. Such data helps them make high-level decisions that keep citizens and firefighters safe, he said.

In addition, the FDNY recently armed its fleet of vehicles with an automatic vehicle location system. Cassano said the system tracks every apparatus. Moreover, the department now has the ability — through an agreement with the New York Police Department — to place fire officers aboard police helicopters so an aerial command view is available.

Cassano stands by the system and his new role. He said all of the aforementioned upgrades at the FDOC were crucial in handling the US Airways flight 1549 crash in the Hudson River in January. When the plane crashed, Washington officials called New York command and control to determine whether the wreck was terrorist-related. Officers on the city’s Joint Terrorism Task Force dispelled the notion. The chief was working out of the FCOC that day and had a visual of the plane floating on the river from the media, as well as a helicopter view. He also was in contact with the FAA and area hospitals. At the same time, he communicated all data via radio to his operations chief 10 miles away.

“I had a handle on what was going on much sooner, much more accurately, than anyone on the scene,” he said. “It was the vast amount of information received and managed at the center that helped me and my team seamlessly manage the incident.”

So it’s essential that fire chiefs tap into technology — and yes, this has changed the nature of their jobs. But to say for ego sake that a chief is better suited to be on the ground rather than armed with all the appropriate information is silly. To lead, a chief must have reliable information. And a leader must protect his people. Armed with technology and information, that’s exactly what the chief is doing.

It’s been nearly eight years since 9/11, and I wondered if New York was prepared for another large-scale incident. So I called New York City Fire Department Chief Salvatore Cassano and asked him point blank: Can the city respond to another terrorist attack?

Cassano said the FDNY will operate at full capacity if the city again is the target of a terrorist attack. He said a lot has changed since 2001. Overseeing all incidents in the city wasn’t an option pre-9/11 because technology was not in place to support large-scale emergency operations. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, the FDNY command center consisted of only a couple of phones and a couple of screens, he said. Response efforts also were hampered by a general inability to share information across local, state and federal agencies.

“It just was totally inefficient to handle any type of large-scale event. It was basically a notification center, so if something happened they would notify people but that was it. There was no major system,” he said. “We had very little information to send to the site at the World Trade Center, and I was getting very little information from the site to us to see what we could do for them. So we realized that it was totally inefficient — we knew that we needed a much better, improved state-of-the-art operations center for future events.”

Even if such technologies had been in place, it was the on-the-fly decisions that had to be made that was the most challenging aspect of that day, Cassano said. The city’s public-safety officials had only 102 minutes to make decisions. In that time, two planes crashed into two 100-story buildings, causing their collapse. Just think of the myriad decisions that had to be made during such a short period of time.

So the department made changes over the last eight years. Two way radios often fail because in-building coverage is insufficient. Now teams carry 25-pound, 45 W radios into high-rise buildings that officers use to communicate with command. In addition, the city has invested $18 million to build a new emergency operations center, where the chief can oversee operations within the five city boroughs and monitor each incident from a centralized location. The operations center connects all of the stations, as well as the FDNY to local, state and federal agencies. It also controls an advanced vehicle location system that tracks all fire department apparatus and stores that information at headquarters. The chief now can tell where all of his units are deployed and the type of incident — across the entire city — from one location. The EOC lets the chief get the most accurate, real-time information out to his field officers and firefighters at incidents, Cassano said.

The department also holds joint drills and table-top exercises.

“We have learned a tremendous lesson in interagency cooperation, sharing of information, being able to talk to each other,” he said. “We’ve been doing it for seven years so if an event happens the response will be automatic.”

Cassano hopes New York City won’t suffer another terrorist attack, but if it does, “we will be ready,” he said. 

Roughly a dozen years ago, I was involved in a very nasty car accident. A knucklehead tried to race through the intersection two blocks from my home before the light turned red. He badly mistimed the effort and slammed into the front passenger side of my vehicle, which had just crossed into the intersection. My car was beyond totaled; the impact bent the frame into a V-shape, according to my insurance adjustor. Worse, my son’s head was split open through his eyebrow — like a melon hammered by a mallet — because it collided with the airbag at the wrong angle. The wound required 60 stitches, artfully applied by a plastic surgeon, to close.

I thought about that incident for the first time in a very long time after participating in a webinar a couple of weeks ago on mobile broadband data for first responders. The wide-ranging discussion eventually found its way to the proposed nationwide broadband network for first responders that would operate in the 700-MHz band. Panelists Steve Jennings, the chief information officer for Harris County, Texas — in which Houston is located — and Jon Fullinwider, the chief information officer (retired) for Los Angeles County, both spoke of the wondrous new capabilities that this network could spawn.

That’s what got me thinking about the crash. I started to contemplate how such a network might have helped my son had his very serious injury been life-threatening. In such a circumstance, would his treatment have been aided had the emergency medical technicians been able to transmit photos of his wound to emergency-room doctors? Would those doctors have been better able to monitor his condition if a medical telemetry system had been in place?

Both Jennings and Fullinwider believe the federal government needs to step up to the plate to get this network built, as has been suggested by Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility — the nation’s two largest wireless operators. Both carriers are calling for a separate stimulus package to underwrite the cost of the buildout, which largely would leverage existing commercial infrastructure in a network-of-networks approach.

“If this is a national imperative, the feds are going to have to throw some money at this,” Fullinwider said.

What they throw the money at is an equally important consideration, according to Jennings. “They need to fund a national infrastructure,” he said. “It’s a blatant waste of money for the feds to build their own systems independent of state and local systems. At a major incident, the feds can’t communicate with the state, the state can’t communicate with the locals, and the locals can’t communicate with other locals. It just doesn’t make good sense.”

When I asked whether it would be folly should this network never be built, both panelist answered — virtually in unison — “absolutely.”

As the victim of a horrific car accident, I couldn’t agree more. And, as a taxpayer, I’d be perfectly happy if the feds threw some of my hard-earned cash at an initiative that indeed should be a national imperative.

What do you think? Tell us in the comment box below.

FDIC exhibits were divided between two locations, with outside product demonstrations behind or beyond the main facilities. The majority of exhibits were located inside the Indianapolis Convention Center, while extended aerials and apparatus manufacturers were located three-quarters of a mile down the street in the new Lucas Oil Stadium.

Firefighting is one of the most innovative professions in the world. It’s no wonder that so many firefighters have second jobs; they need to tinker or fix something that may or may not need fixing. Nowhere is this more obvious to me than at FDIC, where amidst hundreds of booths and exhibitors, I am approached by firefighters who have invented something to help make their job easier.

Many products have made their premieres over the years at FDIC not in a booth, but by creators walking around and asking for a few minutes of time. I remember the first time I saw the RollNRack inventor roll hoses in a hallway and corner booth at FDIC. The product line has expanded, as has the size of the company’s booth.

Several inventors who visited the Fire Chief booth or who I saw this year seemed to fill a need. Perhaps it was the passion that these people had for the solutions their products offered.

Rick Payne, CEO of World Class Safety Products, opened his briecase and offered me a Life Saving Breakout Device. The device looks like the handle of a suitcase, but it is equipped with several LED lights, seatbelt cutters and a windshield punch. It’s magnetic and sticks to any metal surface to illuminate an area. Payne said he worked on this design for 18 months.

Dennis Moore, CEO/owner of Scenedots (“A Rear That Wants to be Seen”) created fluorescent yellow and red 1-inch dots that can be affixed in the shape of the the new NFPA 1901–required 6-inch stripes to the diamond plate on the rear of apparatus. The idea is inexpensively retrofit apparatus with the dots for higher visibility. Moore also introduced a new product with fluorescent metal plates that are screwed into an old length of fire hose and to become a reflective safety strip on the highway. Firefighters can lay it down when they need it and then roll it up like a hose when they’re done.

Demond and Michael Dade, brothers from Quincy, Ill., demonstrated their Mul-T-Wedge, a foot-long, plastic handheld tool that can turn off a sprinkler head quickly and effectively.

The last invention that I saw, HEROPIPE, was created by a 20-year Chicago firefighter. The three-piece device is designed for fighting high-rise fires or CBRN incidents from the floor below. Quickly assembled, the structure encompasses pipe stabilization and rigging design that has a patented hydraulic system between the floor and ceiling.

Each of these products was created by an individual who has invested time and money to fill a need they found in the fire service. Some may become successful, some may not, but their dedication and commitment was inspirational among the flash and splash of FDIC.

Do you remember the old television commercials for the financial advice firm EF Hutton, which had as a tag line, “When EF Hutton talks, everyone listens”? A more contemporary twist on that tag line would be, “When the nation’s largest wireless operator outlines a plan for the proposed nationwide broadband communications network for first responders, everyone in Washington should pay attention.”

Yesterday at the International Wireless Communications Exposition, keynote speaker Steve Zipperstein, Verizon Wireless‘ vice president of legal affairs and general counsel, outlined a plan for the network that would give the 10 MHz of airwaves in the 700-MHz band, the so-called D Block, to public safety, rather than auction it to commercial operators. The spectrum would be allocated in the form of local, regional and state licenses. This is an interesting about-face. Recall that the wireless carriers, led by their lobbying group, the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, were adamantly against giving the D Block to first responders when the notion of this network first was floated three years ago at IWCE by Cyren Call’s Morgan O’Brien.

Under Verizon Wireless plan, agencies would figure out their individual needs and then contract with commercial operators through a bid process to build out the network, leveraging existing infrastructure, which would save considerable time and money, Zipperstein said. He noted that some estimates put the cost of building such a network from scratch at $60 billion or more.

The result would be a network of networks that would leverage IP technology to enable interoperable communications when major incidents requiring a multi-jurisdictional response occur. Also, public safety would have enough spectrum to meet its broadband needs, and have local and/or regional control over the airwaves.

Here’s the best part: Verizon Wireless wants the taxpayers to foot the bill. Zipperstein called on Congress to create a stand-alone stimulus bill dedicated to public safety interoperable broadband communications. He said that interoperable communications should no longer be treated as “some adjunct project,” but rather as a national security imperative, on the same level as “procuring aircraft carriers and fighter jets.”

I couldn’t agree more with this position. I have written at several junctures that the federal government should be looking at this network as it did the interstate highway system a half century ago. Of course, the difference between now and then is that today much of the highway already has been built, which is a huge advantage. Congress has proved that it can find money for initiatives when it wants to, even in a very tough economy. It needs to make this network a priority and fund it accordingly.

An important aspect of this plan is that the company, which authored it, wield incredible lobbying power on Capitol Hill. Harlin McEwen, the chairman of the Public Safety Spectrum Trust, which currently holds public safety’s 10 MHz of broadband airwaves in the 700-MHz band, asked during the keynote session whether the first responder sector could count Verizon Wireless and its lobbyists to be supportive should it embrace this new approach and lobby for it in Washington. Zipperstein didn’t hesitate in saying yes.

The underlying message delivered yesterday by the most powerful force in the commercial wireless sector is this: “If you want this network to become reality, here’s how to get it done.” It’s a message that public safety, as well as federal lawmakers and policy-makers, need to hear, loud and clear.

What do you think? Tell us in the comment box below.

There is no shortage of watershed events in U.S. history, events that changed the course of history. Two that come immediately to mind are Colonel Jimmy Doolittle’s daring bombing raid on Tokyo, which shifted momentum to the U.S. in the Pacific during World War II, and President John F. Kennedy’s declaration in 1961 that America would place a man on the moon before the end of the decade, which delivered a sharp blow to the former Soviet Union during the Cold War.

The common denominator between these events is that in both cases the conventional wisdom was that it couldn’t be done. In Doolittle’s case, bombers had never before flown the distance they would have to fly to bomb Japan, more than 2000 miles. Also, none of the raiders had ever launched from an aircraft carrier before. In Kennedy’s case, America was well behind the Soviets in the space race; in fact, nine months would pass after the president’s declaration before the U.S. put its first astronaut into orbit.

Despite all of this, both of these previously unthinkable events not only occurred, but they did so with stunning impact. It makes me wonder whether another seemingly unthinkable event might one day be possible: satellite technology providing the basis for public-safety communications.

Imagine the impact that would have: no more terrestrial infrastructure to build and maintain; no more network outages because infrastructure has been rendered inoperable by natural or man-made disasters; and, perhaps, drastically reduced coverage and interference issues.

Of course, there are limitations inherent to satellite communications in their present form that preclude their use for mission-critical communications. For example, weather can wreak havoc with satellite signals, the so-called rain fade phenomenon. It’s the reason many people continue to get their TV service from more-expensive cable providers rather than the satellite providers.

However, satellite technology providers are finding solutions to weather-related interference, according to George Choquette, senior vice president of engineering for Hughes Network Systems. Choquette said Hughes can control how much downlink power its satellites transmit on a spot-beam basis to overcome the effects of weather.

“We get radar data from the National Weather Service and other sources, and when weather comes into an area, we step up the transmit power,” he said. “It’s pretty cool. Now, when the 30,000-foot thunder cloud comes in and it’s hailing, [communications cease]. But you can effectively use this technique with much more severe storms than any conventional satellite system.”

Latency and jitter are taboos in public-safety voice and video communications. But Hughes has addressed the latter, according to Choquette, by engineering into its system both constant-rate and on-demand bandwidth. “The satellite keeps track of how many of the connections are active at any particular time, and gives out slot-by-slot, packet-by-packet bandwidth to these terminals to service them,” he said.

In other words, the satellite can be programmed from the ground to allocate necessary bandwidth to public-safety terminals, essentially taking it from the general commercial pool when needed. “Not only is each terminal a router, the satellite is a router,” Choquette said.

Given the pace of technology evolution, it seems reasonable to think that the satellite technology developers will figure out a way to address other shortcomings, such as the fact satellite signals don’t penetrate buildings particularly well, which would be of utmost concern to first responders, particularly firefighters.

Hughes, SkyTerra (formerly Mobile Satellite Ventures) and TerraStar have launched, or will soon launch, giant satellites—“birds,” as they are known in the industry—that will allow form factors for satellite communications antennas and devices on the ground to shrink. Given that, let’s say, hypothetically, that these smaller-form-factor antennas are placed in every apparatus a fire department has. Would it be too far-fetched to think that, in the future, satellite communications from a remote command post or a dispatch center could be received by these in-vehicle satellite antennas, relayed through a gateway to an in-vehicle land mobile radio system that would then transmit the signal to firefighters on a peer-to-peer basis or via an in-building system?

I’m not an engineer, and I’m sure that some of our readers who are will scoff at this suggestion. But before you say it can’t be done, think back to Doolittle and Kennedy. And then think back to a decade ago. Did anyone 10 years ago think that IP-based communications ever would be used in the public-safety sector, for any reason? Or that satellite handsets one day would be in form factors similar to today’s cellular handsets and PDAs? Talk about the unthinkable.

What do you think? Tell us in the comment box below.