Virginia Focus - Satellite Comm & Disasters

For people and businesses, being prepared for natural disasters is key, and widespread outages have underscored the need for dependable satellite communication technology to ensure reliable connectivity in times of need. When internet and cell networks go down, satellite communication infrastructure saves lives by enabling emergency responders, relief organizations, and affected communities to coordinate rescue efforts in real-time. On this episode of Virginia Focus, we're talking to Josh Miner, the Vice President of Land Mobile for Iridium Communications to learn more about staying safe and connected during emergencies.

Episode Transcript

(00:08):
Welcome to Virginia Focus. I'm abouta hughes of the Virginia News network for
people in businesses. Being prepared fornatural disasters is key, and widespread outages
have underscored the need for dependable satellitecommunication technology to ensure reliable connectivity in times
of need. When Internet and cellnetworks go down, satellite communication infrastructure saves
lives by enabling emergency responders, relieforganizations, and affected communities to coordinate rescue

(00:34):
efforts in real time. On thisepisode of Virginia Focus, we're talking to
Josh Miner, the vice president ofland Mobile for Irridium Communications, to learn
more about staying safe and connected duringemergencies. Welcome to the show, mister
Miner. I'm excited about today's conversation. Thanks you back. Great to be
here. So let's start out byyou telling me what Iridium does. Ridium

(00:59):
is a global communications company. Weprovide connectivity everywhere in the world, so
literally anywhere on the planet. Youcan make a phone call or you can
send and receive data, so prettyamazing. As big as the planet is,
so you can keep you connected whereveryou would go. That's awesome,
And today we're talking about connectivity duringdisasters. Why don't you tell us a

(01:22):
little bit about how satellite communication worksin those situations. So satellite communications are
incredibly important during disasters. When disastershappened, often communication networks fail and the
reasons that they fail is because poweris lost, and power is really important

(01:42):
for providing connectivity to our phone networks. And where we come in is that
with our communication terminals, you canconnect to our satellites that are in the
sky and they're routed to areas whereyou can connect into infrastructure that's far away
from the disasters, so we cankeep you connected during important events for coordinating

(02:07):
during disasters, or reaching out thefamily, or coordinating important events, just
to make sure that you're safe andconnected during those trying times. Okay,
now, I know, I'm surepeople have seen recently the AM radio debate
was in the news where electronic orelectric carmakers want to no longer offer it

(02:29):
in some still or planning to dothat. They say it interferes with the
battery. But lawmakers were like,you know, we need the AM broad
or AM radio band to be ableto communicate in disasters. But that's different
than what we're talking about, right, Why don't you explain the difference to
us. Yeah, the difference isAM radios are it's really a one way
technology. It's it's broadcast. Soin those cases during disasters, I mean,

(02:52):
you'd want to have a radio soyou could receive information as an example,
where you'd want to evacuate to UM, and that's that's very important.
Where we come in is that wehave two way communications. So any event
that you needed to coordinate with somebodyor have a conversation UM, you would
connect to our satellites which would thenroute the calls through the public switch telephone

(03:15):
network. And as an example,if you were on the eastern shore of
Virginia and you've lost power, youryour cell phone network doesn't work and you
need to figure out where you weregoing to evacuate too. And also if
you were going to make hotel reservationsto an area that was UM safe,
you would have to then make aphone call, which you couldn't do obviously

(03:36):
with an AM radio. You wouldneed to have a satellite phone and that's
that's what we provide. So UMwe're really kind of a best practice for
those that are in these hurricane proneareas like the eastern shore of Virginia.
So you would have that with yourAM radio, with your flashlight, UM,
your blankets, your water, yourfood, everything that you can do
so you're more resilient, more safeand and you're prepared. And that's that's

(03:59):
really where we in Okay. Now, would you have one of these in
addition? I mean, I assumein addition to your cell phone? Is
it the kind of thing where Ihave to sign up for a plan,
where would I go to shop forsuch things? So we're very accessible on
the internet, and so yes,you would have it in addition to your
your regular phone. So of courseyou use your your smartphone for your day

(04:21):
to day access to phone calls andthe Internet, but you would have one
of our satellite phones as a asa backup. And you could get it
through Amazon, you could get itthrough a number of our partners which are
listed on our website ridium dot com. And the way that it would work
was that this is it's a productthat you can use when you need it.

(04:42):
So you could either have it onall the time, which is what
a lot of businesses do because theydon't know when disasters would would strike and
they need to be always available,which is called business continuity. Those are
best practices. But also for anindividual, they wouldn't have to sign up
for an annual plan. They couldsign up for a month plan, or
they could sign up for a seasonalplan just during the times that they need

(05:02):
it, and then they can shutit off in the months that they that
that's not needed. So it's it'svery flexible. Okay, Now I did
see where UM it wasn't like superpopular, but I did see where a
lot of lawmakers recently were givings weregiven satellite phones. UM. Is that
for the same types of reasons youbelieve? Yeah, recently, UM,

(05:26):
within the Senate, it was somethingthat came out as a as a requirement
is the best practice that for resiliencyand communications during UM either a natural disaster
or unfortunately a man made disaster.U having the ability for the senator and
their staff to communicate and coordinate,it's just absolutely paramount. So that's why,
UM, it's something that that they'vedone, and actually that that's caught

(05:50):
a lot of interest with other peoplethat are saying thinking, wow, maybe
I should be more resilient and havea backup plan for my communications because so
many of us have backup plans foreverything else. Right, I mean we
drive around with our cars and wehave a spare tire, right if if
the if the tire goes flat,or you know, we have the AM
radio in the event of an emergency, or you have a flashlight if the

(06:11):
power goes out off in your house, why not have a backup to to
communicate and coordinate. And that's whatthe senators decided to do. So that's
really been um making people think andwe've seen an impact of that in our
in our sales. Um So,yeah, absolutely, Okay, Now,
um, I'm assuming that these devicesare primarily phones and not other types of

(06:31):
devices. Do you just how longdoes the battery last? Um? You
know, if the powers out,how do we recharge them? Things like
that? Sure? Sure, um. So we have an array of product.
Satellite phones is just as an exampleof a product. We also have
very small messaging devices that provide trackingand ss um So, we have a

(06:54):
variety of different products that have capabilitiesall the way up to providing Internet connectivity
with products like our new Ridium GoExact that which we introduced earlier this year,
which connects your smartphone and you canmake phone calls and access applications like
WhatsApp, to satellite phones that aregood for making phone calls and SMS,
to products like the garment in Reachwhich is a very small messaging only device

(07:17):
that you can send and receive textmessages and hang on your your backpack and
or take on your boat and uhit's it's it's much more portable, smaller
and added more accessible price point.All of those products can be recharged in
a variety of different ways. Theycan be charged through UM USB power banks.

(07:38):
UM is a very common way todo that, so those are readily
available at UM Electronics stores and UMcbs and Walgreens, Rite Aid, et
cetera. You can you can pickthose up. But there's also solar panel
chargers available as well through some ofour specialty retailers. For those that anticipate
longer UM power needs a lot,a lot of options out there for for

(08:01):
keeping those things connected. And thebattery life on those for the satellite phones
is generally they last for about aday if you kept them on all the
time, and the messaging devices willlast for for four or five days,
and that's if you kept them onall the time. But for the satellite
phones, has in particular a lotof it. The use models would be

(08:22):
they would power on the phone,make phone calls, turn them off to
conserve powers. You can really stretchit out for weeks if needed. Okay,
So, um, I know thecell phones and satellite phones obviously operate
on different networks. You know,sometimes when you have your cell phone and
you're driving in the Appalachia Mountains whichthey have in Virginia, of course,

(08:43):
um, sometimes you lose signal.Does that happen with satellite phones? It
can depending upon where you are.So certainly if you were inside of a
building, you wouldn't be able toconnect to our network which is in the
sky. And that's the expectation whenyou're using our products as you're you're outdoors,
right so um, so when you'rewhen you're driving using our products,

(09:07):
we have m external antennas that youcan use for for more reliable service because
it provides connectivity and you don't haveinterference from the metal of the vehicle.
But if you're standing outside, generallythe rule of thumb is m have a
very open view of the sky.Because we have a network of sixty six
satellites that are um constantly orbiting umthe planet. And what makes us different

(09:31):
is that our satellites are low Earthorbit UM, so they're about twenty times
closer than traditional satellite that you wouldthink of for like satellite TV or a
lot of the broadband networks that areout there rely on a single satellite that
may cover you know, the entireum North and South America's regions. We
have lots of satellites, so wecould have you know, three or four

(09:54):
satellites that could be in view,and our antennas automatically connect to them.
So it's kind of like a acell network in the sky. And the
difference is you're you're generally stationary,and the satellites are moving, which is
kind of, um, the oppositeof the example that you're providing provided earlier,
where you're you're driving down the roadand UM, you're moving and then
the satellites stay still. So that'sthat's a little bit how our network works.

(10:16):
Okay, And if I get aphone or device from Iridium and I
need to contact someone who has adifferent providers devices, it still work.
UM. So our our network isum ubiquitous. It works everywhere in the
world, so all of them connectionsroute through our satellites back to UM,

(10:37):
a common gateway and switching center whichis here in the US, But we
have various service providers that offer differentplans and UM as an example, if
you had signed up for one serviceprovider and then the next year you wanted
to switch to a different service provider, UM, you could. Ultimately it
still comes through our our network andall all of our satellite phones as an

(11:01):
example, have simcards, so youjust can get a new simcard, similar
to like if you switch from onecarrier with your with your iPhone or Android
phone and switch to another, wecan accommodate that through different service providers.
Okay, does the weather affect connectivity? Actually it doesn't, and that's one
of the big advantages of the frequenciesthat we use, which are called L

(11:24):
band. So that's another aspect ofour network which sets us apart, which
is that we're highly resilient and wework in all weather conditions. So our
frequencies are very similar to the frequenciesthat are used for GPS around one point
six gigahertz, and that's incredibly important, particularly in natural disasters or for mission

(11:48):
critical communications. Knowing that our communicationsand data transmissions will work through any adverse
weather conditions compared to if you thinkof like satellite TV or or UM or
broadband connectivity which uses U K bandUM, that will often fade out in
UM in rain and adverse weather conditionsbecause it uses a different spectrum. So

(12:13):
UM we really are kind of inthe sweet spot of communications, particularly for
mission critical and areas where you needhighly reliable communications. Okay, now do
you personally have some of these devicesand have you ever used them? I
do, Yeah, I use themall the time. UM. So I
have a number of different devices UM. I have a an Iridium satellite phone.

(12:37):
I also have the Iridium Go EXACUMand I'm very much into UM hiking
outdoors. I have family in Montana, so when we go hiking UM away
from my family's ranch that that's outthere, I have an an uncle that
live in Montana, I always takean Iridium satellite phone with me because you
never know what could happen. Imean, there's wildlife that's out there,

(12:58):
or somebody could trip and get injured, and you know, just for peace
of mind, having the ability tocall back and get UM support would be
It's very important. But I'm alsoan avid Mountain biker, and so I
go in an annual trip to Nashville, North Carolina, and I always make
sure that I carry one of ouriridium satellite device. It's just in case
somebody gets injured or we run outof water or something like that. It's

(13:22):
just you just have to, Imean, it's it's just for peace of
mind. Yeah, for sure.And it works like a regular phone.
You just dial the number as youregularly would, right you do, so
you can you can store phone numbers. You can also manually dial the phone
number. The only thing that's differentabout it is that you do have to
put in the international access code andcountry code, so it's similar to any

(13:43):
international dialing because um iridium is effectivelya country within itself. So our country
code is eight eight one six.That's how you reach somebody on a Ridium
UM. If you try and reachsomebody within the US, you dial plus
one. If you try and reachsomebody and you hey, you die,
plus four four. So you haveto follow that same convention, so that
way it routes appropriately. But wealso have other products like the Ridium Go

(14:09):
and Ridium Go Exact. They canpull contacts directly from your smartphone and you
also can use a feature that wehave which is called smart dial and it'll
just automatically put in the correct dialingsequence to the numbers you have in your
contact So it just just makes ita lot easier. Oh wow, that
does sound easy. So are youa parent? I am. I have

(14:31):
two teenage girls. I have arising sophomore and also a rising senior.
Okay, so did you get themsome of these devices too, or did
they use yours? They use minebecause typically if we go hiking when we're
in Montana, we're we're all together. But I'm sure once they're off on
their own, UM I'll definitely makesure that they have they have a ridium

(14:52):
to stay safer. And we seethat a lot, particularly with during the
summer months. We see families thatgo camping take advantage of of using our
products just to make sure that UMthey're prepared and that they have UM a
reliable means of getting support if theyneed it. UM there is a whole
market of rentals that that that wesee out there. Well, we'll see

(15:13):
UM a number of our service providersthat will rent the products for UM annual
trips with a lot of families orhigh schools or people that are between years
in college. Well, we'll takethe products just to make sure that they
UM are safer and and we're seeingunfortunately more and more UM issues with people
that are that weren't prepared. Imean, there's a whole heat wave going

(15:35):
on in the Southwest right now,and unfortunately, you know, we we've
seen issues there with people that havegotten into trouble with not having enough water
or getting disoriented, and so wesee that in the summer months, but
we also see it with skiers,you know, people that are skiing off
off the off of the slopes anddoing off piece type skiing. UM and
a lot of the more experienced UMand UM people that do a lot more

(15:58):
advanced planning, we'll use our trackersor other products just to stay safe and
get rescue coordination if needed. That'sawesome. I didn't know you could rent
them. That's actually a very geniusidea. Like you said, if you're
not one of those that's super outdooroutdoorsy, but you are going to make
a trip, UM, do theydo that through your company or through some
of your providers, I guess someof our providers. So if you looked

(16:21):
up iridium rentals. I'm sure youcould find a number of them, UM,
and they would provide a either weeklyrate or a monthly rate, and
UM they would have a price thatwould cover the rental of the equipment and
also the access for the for theservice. And then they're there maybe a
small per minute charge for the forthe phone calls if UM, if needed.

(16:42):
Okay, now, since you dohave some of these, I'm gonna
ask you some questions. Do youthink they're pretty durable? UM? As
far as the devices themselves, Imean, like if you were to drop
it in water, is it goingto stop working? Um? Our devices
are incredibly durable. UM. Sowe we build our next to military standards,
So they're built to m Military Standardseight ten for resistance to shock and

(17:07):
vibration. So we figured if it'sgood enough for the military, it'll be
good enough for our our users thatare using them in these extreme conditions.
In fact, we have a productcalled the Irridium Extreme which is incredibly durable.
It has a rubber overmold. Youcan drop it. It's it's mill
spec and it's also I sixty fiverated, which means it's rated for ingress

(17:30):
protection. You could spray it witha garden hose and it'll still work.
It's pretty incredible. Oh wow,that's impressive. So let's get into the
nitty gritty. You said there's severaldifferent devices. Some of them are messaging,
so like it just sends text onlyand then summer phones. Do you
have like any watches or anything likethat. UM, So let me first
talk about the messaging devices, andwe have a whole portfolio of messaging devices

(17:56):
that are out there, and justto just take a step back and provide
UM an overview of how Ridium enablesthese types of capabilities. Aridium runs the
network. We provide all the connectivityUM to exchange messages and but we also
provide modules U and think of likekind of like Intel how they enable laptops

(18:18):
like a Dell laptop. We haveUM modules which enable messaging devices and other
products to um plurphyrate out at themarket. So we provide the modules.
We have a number of different providersthat provide messaging devices which we've enabled through
this technology. So Garment is anexample of one. M Zolio is another
one viv Somewhere Labs, and wealso have a number of other ones.

(18:41):
UM that are built for military purposes, like UM Tract twenty four and U
n al, But all those arebuilt for different markets and for different use
cases. But the things that theyhave in common is they leverage the strength
of our network and that they're highlymobile, they're very power efficient, they're

(19:02):
very small. Antennas on them areabout the size of the tip of your
finger UM so they're incredibly small,and they're omnidirectional. So a lot of
people when they think about satellites,they think, oh, I gotta I
gotta point towards a satellite which inthe which is in the southern hemisphere,
and I've got to stay locked ontothat. We're different are antennas are omnidirectional.
They point everywhere in the sky.So you can just simply hang one

(19:25):
of these devices on your backpack,or you can carry it on your your
hip and or you could put iton the dash of your car and it
will send messages. And there's avariety of different ways that you can use
that. UM one is it cansend a position report every five minutes and
it will share that with your yourfamily, or with your co workers UM

(19:47):
or with a group of people thatare following you if you're like on an
adventure, and they can see whereyou've been, um, they can see
the direction that you're going. UM. So that's one aspect of it is
the tracking. The other is themessaging, and that's where the connectivity to
the smartphone comes in, so theycan you can send text messages back and
forth through an app which is onyour smartphone, and the message device acts

(20:10):
effectively is like a wireless hub tosend those messages to the Iridium network and
then get that to their destination throughthe service provider. And then also in
the event of emergencies, there's anSOS button on them, so you press
the SOS button and then it goesthrough a rescue coordination center. They ask
you a series of questions and thenet gets dispatched to the local rescue coordination
team or public safety office and thenthey can get you help. So those

(20:34):
are the messaging devices, and thenUM kind of a step up from that
would be satellite voice enabled devices,and we have variety of different categories of
those. Some that just offer justa single line of voice, and then
what we would call narrow band data, which is good for things like messaging
or email. But then a stepup from that would be midband data,

(20:57):
which we just introduced a product calledthe Iridium Go Exec And with that product,
it's a little bit bigger, butit's highly capable in that you can
have multiple people sharing that hotspot devicefrom their smartphones. Um. Multiple people
could be making phone calls. Youcan also be sending and receiving messages from
apps that you have on your phonewithout a special app, so you could

(21:19):
use WhatsApp or you could use IMessage. So it enables you to use
the apps that you use every dayfor critical types applications. And then we
even have a step up from that, which would be our service broadband devices
and those are used by military's,public safety, government users, oil and
gas, etc. UM. Andthose have our highest speeds and also our

(21:41):
highest capabilities. And those are arestill omnidirectional antennas, but they're um that
they're larger, but one of thebig benefits there is that there's no moving
parts. They're they're highly reliable.UM. You mentioned watches, UM so
an area that we are getting into. We made a big announcement early or
with a partnership that we have withQualcomm, so we our technologies is now

(22:06):
embedded into the Qualcom snap Dragon chip, which is on many smartphones that are
out there. So through that partnership, we will have the capability to send
messages through the snap Dragon processor directlythrough a smartphone. So check out that
announcement. It's a really cool technology. So the point of that is we

(22:27):
can get incredibly small and we're goingto be in more and more device categories
as we go into the future.So exciting times. Yeah, that's awesome.
That sounds really exciting. M Soit sounds like you have products for
literally everybody. You know, mebeing average Jane who doesn't do too much

(22:48):
too often. What are the pricerange of things like this? Like who
could I contact to help me figureout what's right for me? And what
can I expect as far as prices, sure, Um, Well, all
of our service providers and value outof resellers, they set their own prices,
and probably the best paced place tolook would be um as a starting
point would be the Iridium dot comwebsite, which is Iridium dot com and

(23:15):
that will just show you kind ofa full array of products that are out
there. Um. But the rangeis anywhere from a couple hundred dollars for
for like a messaging device ALTHO wayup into the low thousand dollar range for
form satellite phones and um depending uponyou know how capable the products are,
they can be in the thousands ofdollar range, but those are typically for

(23:37):
more higher capable broadband type devices andum I even I haven't even touched on.
We have whole other lines of businessesthat focus on maritime communications and aviation.
I mean, we're in tens ofthousands of aircraft and we're used all
across the world and um commercial shippingand uh fishing in all areas. So

(24:00):
Ridium truly is everywhere. And yeah, we really take pride and everything that
we do to help people stay saferand more productive around the world. Yeah,
I know, it did notice onyour website that you have polar as
one of your areas and it saysyou're doing scientific research and expedition there.
Can you talk about that a littlebit. Yeah, So it's the other

(24:23):
aspect that's really unique about our networkis that, unlike a lot of other
satellite based networks, which their signalsdegrade as you get further and further into
into higher latitudes, our networks isin polar orbits, so We actually have
six different planes of eleven satellites eachand they all cross over the poles and

(24:47):
that's where all the satellites converge.So we have stellar polar coverage. And
we have scientists from all around theworld that use ridium technology UM down and
Artica. There's there's various polar stationsthat are set up there and they UM
they use our technology for environmental monitoringUM to do send back critical data UM

(25:08):
to their offices to to share theirfindings UM. Also for safety purposes.
We've we've had stories of people thathave gone UM, you know, walking
around in polar regions and fallen intocrevasses and been able to use our satellite
phones to get rescued. Even thoughthey're they're in a hole that's eight feet
below ground and they're stuck UM aslong as you can see the sky,

(25:29):
they they've been able to call andget get help, which is really important
UM. But also we have examplesof scientists that have set up UM autonomous
Scientific Monitoring stations UM. One ofthem that I can remember was was a
couple of years ago they set upand it was UM. It was it
was north of Norway in small Barkand they were doing research and they chose

(25:52):
our um our CERTA seven hundred terminals. We have a partner called Talas who
makes a product called Mission Link.UM. They set up this autonomous monitoring
station and they kept it up therefor a whole year, and they chose
us just because we work in temperatureextremes. UM. Also, there's no
moving parts, and they just setit up there and they had all kinds
of different sensors, wind sensors,and they had cameras and UM. It

(26:15):
was really exciting for them because theydidn't have to have somebody um staff there
all the time. They could justdo this monitoring remotely in the comfort of
their their office. UM So,UM, it's it's it's amazing, It's
it really just kind of comes downto the imagination of what people can can
dream up. UM. You know, we can make them more connected and
anywhere in the world, particularly inpolar regions, but also everywhere else.

(26:37):
That sounds awesome. UM. SoI'm just curious, and you're kind of
the expert here, is there anythingthat the audience needs to know about this
subject and about your company that Ijust didn't know to ask you? UM?
I think The big thing is isthat UM, we we're here.
We've been We've been providing this thisservice for over twenty years and we've been

(26:59):
kind of the mainstay of of satellitecommunications. And UM. You know,
if you if you want a veryreliable network that's proven, we're it.
We're we're available now, and we'reavailable UM and all these different vertical markets.
So if if you need to haveconnectivity, it's a backup to what
you're doing today or extend your range. UM look look at a radium because
UM we have over five hundred differentpartners that that offer services and products that

(27:23):
that meet all of the different needsfor people that operate UM you know,
remote areas, but also people thatjust want backup UM communications. So UM,
I think I think in a lotof ways, you know, day
to day people just kind of takefor granted that they have the ability to
make phone calls and connect. ButUM, you know, unfortunately, just

(27:44):
like a lot of other events likeyou know, losing power or getting a
flat tire or you know, gettingin a car accident or something like that,
you need to have an insurance policyor a backup and UM, you
want to work with somebody that's proven, and it's been doing this for for
a long long time. So there'sprobably a lot of noise out there of
people that are, you know,trying to get into this space that may
have like one satellite and you know, and doing a lot of experiments and

(28:06):
things like this. But we're proven. I mean, we've we've been doing
it for for well over twenty years. I think we're coming up on twenty
five years and we're on our secondgeneration network. So I think the thing
that I would I would say isthat, um, yeah, we've we've
done it and our business model isproven and uh and if you want reliability,
that doesn't get much more reliable thana ridium. And I would say

(28:27):
that we did just overhaul our network. We're on. Our second generation network
is about a three billion dollar effortthat we completed in twenty nineteen. UM.
So we have the gold standard ofof of of networks that are out
there, um, all operational andover two million customers that are that are
using us day in and day out, and um, you know, all

(28:48):
of our our satellites are there.And on top of that, we have
fourteen spares now, so in theevent that something happens to one of our
satellites, we can move another oneright into place, and so just that
should think for peace of mind usthat's where we come in. Yeah,
that's very impressive. Do you feellike we've covered it pretty well? Yeah?
I think we've covered a lot.Yeah, and I think a good

(29:10):
conversation. I've learned a lot today. Good. This was great. Yeah.
I really appreciate your time and thankyou for coming on the show.
Okay, thanks for Rebecca. Youcan learn even more by visiting the Iridium
YouTube channel iridium com c O mM. I hope you enjoyed today's show.
Thanks for tuning into the show onyour favorite local radio station. You
can now listen to this show orpass shows through the iHeart app or on

(29:33):
iHeart dot com. Just search forVirginia Focus under podcasts. I'm Rebecca Hughes
with a Virginia news network, andI'll be here next week on Virginia Focus