Friday fragments - comms news from around the web for 6 September 2013

A weekly round-up of critical communications and public safety radio news from around the internet for Friday, 6 September 2013.

Call centre in a battle zone. Emergency call and despatch centres can be hectic and tense places at the best of times, but spare a thought for these emergency call centre operators in Kabul, Afghanistan. When an attack occurs, they need to get the Afghan national security forces to the scene, fast. The calls received, and the responses by the security forces, have foiled an estimated 3300 terrorist plots over the past six years.

Hams to the rescue. The Pentagon and the US Pacific Command recently undertook a transpacific emergency communications exercise, enlisting the aid of amateur radio operators in several countries. The exercise, called MARS (Military Auxiliary Radio System) Pacific Endeavour-13, was held as a response to communications difficulties experienced in the aftermath of the Japanese tsunami. Sixty stations took part.

A different kind of military band. The US FCC has proposed three frequency bands for use by mobile broadband, one of which (1755-1780 MHz) is currently used by the US military for tactical radio relay, explosive demolition robots and air combat training. The band is adjacent to one already used for wireless services. Comments on the proposal will be accepted up until 18 September.

The effects of comms outages. A report from the European Network and Information Security Agency provides analysis of 79 severe outages of electronic communication networks or services. Amongst its findings are that disruptions by natural phenomena affected an average of around half a million users per incident. But these kinds of outages also lasted the longest, around 13 hours on average