Despite FEMA, several geek groups had post-Katrina communications up within hours, not days. Also…WiMax steps up to Challenge WiFi

Mac Dearman: Geek of the Year?

Mac Dearman owns a company in Rayville, Louisiana, called Maximum Access, LLC, a wireless Internet service provider. Hours after Hurricane Katrina pummeled the Gulf Coast, Dearman visited shelters in the northern part of the state to connect telephones via VoIP. ‘”In the first 24 hours after we plugged the phones in, there were 11 family members reunited,” he said. “We got a hug every time we went into a shelter to make sure things are up and running all right,”‘ according to this article from InformationWeek.

While Katrina took 2.8 million telephone lines and 1,600 cellular towers with her, along with homes and businesses, the hurricane created a situation in which groups could setup a great wireless experiment—that worked. Those ‘spontaneous wireless projects by groups that simply wanted to help—government mandate or not—is spurring interest in how to deploy the latest in communications technology and expertise in a more organized fashion after future disasters.’

‘”It’s pretty clear that it was the folks out in the field who did some amazing heroics to get communications back up,” said Carl Malamud, chief technology officer of the Center for American Progress think tank. “We need to move toward a system where people are empowered to do what they can do.”‘

The FCC, demonstrating perhaps the only federal agency that worked quickly, setup a clearinghouse to coordinate the communications equipment and expertise needs for the disaster area, and also eased rules for some advanced technologies. While even now, FEMA didn’t return a half-dozen calls and email messages seeking comment for the InformationWeek article, the FCC on the other hand—even at the time of the disaster—responded to Dearman, exceeding his ‘wildest expectations.’

BellSouth later donated bandwidth, Trango Broadband donated radio equipment, and MCI donated a 45-megabit-per-second that Dearman ‘used to light up sountern Mississippi, including Bay St. Louis, Waveland, Perlington, and Diamondhead.’ A group based at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California—sent in by the military—also helped, bringing a number of vehicles, including a 33-ft RV loaded with WiFi and satt gear as well as ‘emerging technologies for carrying high-bandwidth connections over a range of miles.’

Dearman said, “There were trucks coming from all over the United States. This restored my faith in humanity,” he said. “They showed up. They came up to my house, to my farm. Their trucks were loaded down with food and wireless gear.”

Screw Microsoft and Google. Let’s nominate Dearman for Geek of the Year.

Before Wifi’s Had a Chance to Change the World, Another Wireless Player Steps up to Bat

According to this article in BusinessWeek Online, it took a decade for cell phones and CD players to take off. New technologies such as Wifi, digital cameras, and MP3 players were adopted in much less time. Andrew Decker, chairman of Bear Stearns Investment Banking’s global telecom group, asks “Could WiMax become disruptive in three to five years? Sure.” Disruptive, that is, to established wireless players.

‘WiMax creates “hotspots” that stretch dozens of miles and allow users to surf the Web wirelessly at speeds that are much faster than connections via a digital subscriber line (DSL) or cable modem. A single WiMax radio is 20 or 30 times faster than a household broadband connection.’

Some skeptics say that WiMax will run into obstacles, however, such as availability of the licensed wireless spectrum—which is in the hands of a ‘few big providers.’ Even Covad is back after bankruptcy, assembling its own 44-state DSL network. ‘Starting next year, it’s going to bypass the phone companies by selling WiMax connections. “We think WiMax is going to be big,”‘ says Covad CEO Richard Hoffman.

The article comments, ‘WiMax has the power to disrupt the telecom market by throwing control of the customer up for grabs.’ Here’s the trick. While Wifi is merely a ‘wireless version of a broadband extension cord with a reach o a few dozen yards,’ WiMax eliminates the need for a fixed broadband connection—in the home, office, or industrial facility.

Just how big is WiMax expected to be? Are 100,00 connections forecast for 2005 and 8 million by 2009 enough to get your attention?