* Coach2100 app provides emergency data communications in minutes
What would you do if your entire network infrastructure was wiped out by a disaster? That’s the scenario that the U.S. Coast Guard tested recently in its San Francisco office.
What the Coast Guard found is that a software application from start-up Coach2100 can provide emergency data communications in minutes by using local satellite communications hooked up to the Internet backbone.
Coach2100 is billing its command and control software as an alternative to radio communications for first responders, government agencies and corporations looking to rapidly reinstate information exchange when local Internet access is unavailable.
“We don’t require an infrastructure to function,” says Jim Camp, president of Coach2100. “As long as we have battery or generator power, we can function.”
The Coast Guard set up a test network that linked its network operations center with an emergency response trailer, a patrol boat and a mobile unit in a car. Then the Coast Guard pulled the plug on the network operations center to simulate a scenario where that center was demolished. Using Coach2100’s software, the Coast Guard was able to set up a satellite dish in its emergency response trailer and get communications up and running between the remaining network nodes within 15 minutes.
“Coach2100’s technology performed quite well,” says Paul Martin, port security specialist with the Coast Guard in San Francisco. “Without Coach 2100, we’d handle this sort of situation with our radios but then we wouldn’t have any data communications or any video.”
The Coast Guard tested Coach2100’s software in June. The agency has no plans to buy it yet.
“There’s a definite place in terms of usefulness for this software,” Martin says. “The only limitation is that all of your platforms have to have some Internet capability.”
Coach2100’s command and control software is server based and requires no client software.
Coach2100 originally developed the software for companies to manage negotiations in far-flung locations. The software allows users to share information and provides role-based access to databases. It uses password-level security for database access, and all communications are encrypted.
“What’s unique about our software is its ability to restore communications quickly,” Camp says. “We support information sharing across all boundaries and borders…We have scalability and we have global reach, so you can communicate with anyone, anywhere. And there’s no requirement that you have particular software on your system.”
Coach2100 users can create teams on the fly to share information and manage views of that information. The software also supports links to other resources on the Internet.
“Take a situation like New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. It was a terrible tragedy and the network infrastructure was completely destroyed. But with a satellite uplink, the fact that there is no infrastructure doesn’t matter to us,” Camp says.
Coach2100’s software has been available for a year and a half. Customers include U.S. intelligence agencies and Sun. The software costs around $2,500 per user, per year.
Coach2100 is located in Vero Beach, Fla. and has 11 employees. It is privately funded.
