First responders and volunteers working at the site of the deadly landslide have a Wi-Fi signal, thanks to a backpack satellite-link setup the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Tribes of Alaska sent to Wrangell.
The council’s operations center keeps the Starlink setups in Juneau and Sitka for emergencies and community use, said Chris Cropley, director of the Tidal Network at Tlingit and Haida.
The council sent two of its Starlink packs to Wrangell on Nov. 22, and the service was up and running at the landslide response site that same day.
An antenna, which is about 20 inches tall, router and cables all fit in a backpack, and can provide high-speed service comparable to fiber optic internet delivery, Cropley said. With the Wi-Fi signal, responders at the site can access the internet and make and receive cell calls, Cropley said.
Unload the backpack, set up the antenna, plug in the router and feed it with 110-volt power “and you’ve got internet,” he explained.
Rhonda Butler, emergency operations specialist with Tlingit and Haida in Juneau, delivered two units to Wrangell. “I was able to set up Starlink both on the north side, the town side of the slide, and over on the south side” to help with search operations and mapping systems.
The area around 11-Mile Zimovia Highway is outside the range of cell towers in Wrangell.
“Communication is crucial to emergency management. The State Emergency Operation Center appreciates the Tlingit and Haida Starlink units that have increased that ability of responders and residents to communicate,” Jeremy Zidek, public information officer for the state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, said Friday.
“When tribal entities, faith-based and volunteer organizations, and state and federal agencies pull together to support local emergency response efforts, it makes a tremendous difference to the people that have been impacted by a disaster,” Zidek said.
The Starlink service has a limited range, about the area of a large house, Cropley said, so the Wi-Fi generally is only for responders and other to use at the command posts.
A direct line of sight to the low-orbit Starlink satellites is required for the service to work, he said. “A year ago, we had zero satellites in Southeast.” But as the company has launched more satellites into orbit, the coverage now extends throughout Southeast.
SpaceX rockets started launching Starlink satellites in 2019. As of last month, the company said it had more than 5,000 of its small satellites in orbit around the planet.
“That clear view of the sky is important,” Cropley said of a setup site.
Starlink promotes itself as “the world’s first and largest satellite constellation using a low-Earth orbit to deliver broadband internet capable of supporting streaming, online gaming, video calls and more.”
Tlingit and Haida has in the past deployed the backpack units in Kake and Pelican.
The Starlink equipment costs less than $1,000, Cropley said, with a monthly subscription fee of $150.
The temporary service at the landslide site is separate from Tlingit and Haida’s ongoing Tidal Network effort, which will include at least two tower sites in Wrangell to serve areas out the road and on the north end of the island and toward the Stikine River flats that lack good cell coverage.
The network’s goal is to bring reliable, high-speed internet to unserved and underserved areas in Southeast.
A couple of the self-contained tower installations arrived in town earlier year, and Tlingit and Haida is working with the borough and a private cell tower operator at Shoemaker Bay for permits and permissions, while it also moves through the environmental review process for its new installations, Cropley said.
Tidal Network is using federal grant funds, which require environmental reviews of the sites, he explained.
The new wireless internet and cell service for the community could be in operation by summer, he said. Rates and signup information will be available later.
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