This Small Team of Dispatchers Saves Lives Via Satellite

[Rex Sanders]

When you press the SOS button on many satellite devices, including inReach and SPOT, your alert goes to an obscure building in Montgomery, Texas, home of the IERCC.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-07/this-small-team-of-dispatchers-is-saving-lives-via-satellite

The Texas team’s network now monitors some 634,000 devices (satellite phones, GPS beacons, activity trackers) used by nature lovers, athletes, and adventurers in places where cell signals can’t reach. Hardware makers such as Garmin, Globalstar, Inmarsat, and Iridium say the IERCC’s expertise and global network of emergency responders are worth a small cut of their monthly satellite network subscription fees, like the 911 fees that wireless carriers charge – about $1 a month per device, on average.

— Rex

[Arthur]

Rex

Superb, thanks for posting this.  Gives me confidence if I ever have to use this.  Have they ever posted the ratio of real emergencies to “my coffee is cold” emergency calls.  That would be interesting.

 

[Author]

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