Mobile connectivity is something that most people take for granted, but extreme weather or natural disasters could lead to network outages at a time when it is vitally important for rescue workers to be able to communicate. To overcome this problem, Telia recently tested a new portable mobile base station capable of extending cellular coverage to areas where there otherwise wouldn’t be any.
The test took place during the annual Ulendt exercises for voluntary and public rescue services in Lom, Norway, between May 27 and June 1, as Jon Christian Hillestad, Head of Enterprise at Telia Norway, explains.
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“For two years, Telia has worked to develop safe and robust solutions together with the Norwegian Armed Forces in this area,” Hillestad says. “One of these solutions is a mobile base station that provides mobile coverage without the need for other fixed infrastructure. During the exercise in Lom, we were able to test the solution in close cooperation with the rescue services, and at the same time proved the potential of mobile base stations.”
Telia’s portable mobile base stations – which are compact, lightweight and battery-powered – can connect to Telia’s core network via satellite, if no other connection is available. During this year’s Ulendt exercises, Telia demonstrated how a portable mobile base station can be flown into position using a drone, making it much easier to restore connectivity in areas that may otherwise have become inaccessible due to landslides or floods. One of the emergency scenarios that the rescue services practiced this year was the evacuation of mountain huts that were not accessible by road, as Henning Huuse, a 5G business developer at Telia Norway, explains.
“Our task was to restore mobile coverage so that volunteer relief crews and the emergency services could communicate and coordinate their operations,” Huuse says.
Telia’s portable mobile base stations support 4G, 5G stand-alone, 5G non-stand-alone and network slicing, enabling multiple virtual networks to be set up using a single base station.
“For example, we could offer a closed, secure network for the Armed Forces or other actors in the rescue service through a separate ‘slice’, while the civilian population benefits from regular mobile coverage,” Huuse says.
Telia is working on being able to offer the solution as a dedicated service to customers in both the public and private sectors.