Montana Telecommunications Association Monthly Commentary – Telcos help fight Montana Fires

MTA’s monthly commentary, which discusses the prominent, but invisible, role that Montana’s rural telecom providers play in helping to fight Montana’s wildfires.

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Telcos help fight Montana Fires

Fire season has descended upon Montana in full force. As we watch and breathe the smoke from these fires we send our blessings to those citizens and emergency personnel whose property and welfare are directly affected by the fires.

There are thousands of people working to manage and contain these fires. As a major fire heats up, fire fighters and support crews set up temporary work sites nearby. These fire camps effectively become portable, overnight towns. Not only do these camp-towns require food, water and shelter for the personnel living there, but they also have a high demand for telecommunications capabilities. Lots of telecommunications, often in remote locations where facilities don’t exist, or at least in areas that are not designed to handle new towns that may pop virtually overnight.

The challenges of meeting the communications needs of Montana’s fire crews are formidable, but not insurmountable. Montana’s telecom providers have been quick to respond to these demands. A recent article in the Great Falls Tribune highlights the efforts of three, sometimes competing, telecom providers who have responded to the fires in the Bob Marshal Wilderness near Choteau and Augusta.

Fire crews set up camps to fight the Ahorn fire west of Augusta and the Fool Creek fire west of Choteau. The Forest Service called Verizon Wireless to request emergency cellular phone service in remote areas. Verizon responded by sending COWs to the region. COWs, you say? That’s cells on wheels in telecom jargon. Essentially, COWs are mobile cell towers.

But a tower, mobile or fixed, doesn’t do much good if it’s not connected to the rest of the telecom infrastructure. So that’s where VisionNet entered the scene. VisionNet is a consortium of independent Montana telecom providers which offers a variety of advanced telecom services for the telecom industry and telecom consumers throughout the state. VisionNet’s services include fiber optic backbone service, over 150 videoconference facilities, and a variety of telecom operations management services.

Verizon called VisionNet to quickly establish circuits between Verizon’s COWs and 3 Rivers Telephone Cooperative—the local telephone service provider. VisionNet’s advanced fiber optic network then took the telecom traffic to Verizon’s network center in Helena. The three companies essentially provide the connection from the fire crews, to the local network, and ultimately, with VisionNet providing the long haul connectivity, to Helena. VisionNet provisioned three high-speed connections to both Augusta and Choteau and supplied the bandwidth necessary to light the circuits.

With the circuits and bandwidth installed, 3Rivers then set up temporary phone and Internet connections in several locations. 3 Rivers redeployed personnel from around its network area to work into the night on the emergency deployment.

In Augusta, they installed 31 phone lines and 4 DSL night speed internet connections and three T-1 circuits for the portable cell tower (the COW). In Choteau, they installed 9 phone lines, 2 DSL Internet connections and another T-1 for the COW.

Terry Noyd, 3 Rivers’ administrative services manager told the Great Falls paper, “in this competitive environment, the three companies [—Verizon, 3 Rivers and VisionNet—] are rivals, but we also partner up on projects like this.” Added Corey Jensen, operations manager of VisionNet, “in a situation such as wildfires, it’s imperative we work collaboratively and quickly. In today’s telecommunications [environment], there normally are many players involved in getting and keeping people connected. VisionNet was pleased to e able to assist the fire crews working in the field.”

These three companies certainly are not unique when it comes to responding to critical needs quickly and effectively. Last year, Hot Springs Telephone Company in Hot Springs actually expanded its network to build broadband capacity in Perma, MT, population seven. That’s seven people. Hot Springs Telephone Company normally serves fewer than one thousand people in an area roughly 700 square miles. Last year, Hot Springs sent fiber optic cable to the metropolis of Perma because every three years or so Perma’s population swells to 500 to 600 people, the result of a fire camp which locates there whenever wildfires are in the area. Next time the Perma camp gets set up, they’ll have all the telecom capabilities they’ll ever need.

In the phone business, this is a normal, but invisible service that telecom providers offer. They routinely respond to critical situations, dropping everything and focusing on the task at hand, any time of the day, any time of the year, to keep the network running.

Whether they’re connecting COWs in remote locations, or deploying fiber optics to serve regular fire camps, Montana’s telecom providers are willing and able to respond to any situation.

Best regards,

Geoff Feiss, CAE

General Manager

Montana Telecommunications Association

406.442.4316 (office)

406.594.0424 (mobile)

http://www.telecomassn.org

Serving Montana’s telecommunications industry since 1955