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In the aftermath of the horrific events of September 11,
2001, the entire nation came together to mourn the loss of
those who died and suffered, and to plan a way to recover
as a society as best we could.
No words that I could
write here would be
adequate to convey how
awful the atrocities were to witness
or even to watch unfold on
TV. Nor can mere words ever do
justice to the extraordinary
scenes of overwhelming human
bravery and the endurance of
the human spirit.
Along with amazing individuals
like New York City area volunteers
who, as you read this, will undoubtedly
still be sifting through the ruins, and ordinary
people who sat at home – like the
160,000-plus people who donated over
$6.5-million dollars to the Red Cross
through Amazon.com – many industries
came together to pitch in and do their
parts as well.
Restaurants in the area worked night
and day to provide food for the rescue
workers, all the TV networks put aside
their ratings war to air a telethon to raise
money, and companies large and small donated what they could to
help out. Throughout this whole process, the wireless industry
wasn’t left out: on the contrary, it came together and played a large
part in both the relief and the recovery efforts.
Many of the wireless news reports following the incident discussed
how the wireless networks, by then missing several transmitters
that had been located on the World Trade Center roofs,
were buckling under the huge volume of calls being made – calls
between loved ones to assure each other that they were okay. In
record time, however, additional cells were installed, and the wireless
networks were back up and running.
EDITORIAL
by Robert Diamond
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Beyond Words
and Wires…
Recovery Begins
Robert Diamond is editor-in-chief of Wireless Business & Technology as well as SYS-CON Media’s ColdFusion Developer’s Journal.
Named one of the “Top thirty magazine industry executives of the year under the age of 30” in Folio magazine’s November 2000 issue,
Robert recently graduated from the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg, however, of how wireless
vendors were able to pitch in.
A coalition of companies that normally compete with
each other and worry day and night about profits and
ROI, joined forces to try to find possible survivors in the
rubble of the World Trade Center’s twin towers. Working
with FEMA (Federal Emergency Management
Administration) was the newly
formed Wireless Emergency
Response Team. Companies
such as AT&T Wireless Services
Inc., Verizon Wireless, Nextel
Communications, VoiceStream
Wireless, Motorola Inc.,
Ericsson, Nortel Networks
Corp., SkyTel, Telcordia
Technologies, Cingular Wireless,
and others joined forces in a
common goal.
Families and friends of suspected victims
of the disaster were encouraged to
call a tollfree number and provide mobilephone
and pager numbers of those missing
in an effort to activate the devices and,
hopefully, locate survivors. Kudos to those
in the wireless industry for trying their
best, and for sending out their best engineers
using the latest in GPS and related
technology to help.
In the days following the tragedy,
mobile phone vendors sold a month’s
worth of phones in under a week, reflecting
a growing adoption of wireless technology as a way of staying
connected with loved ones and friends. With that comes a growing
responsibility for the industry as a whole to serve their customers
– a responsibility that I believe they’re capable of handling.
All in all, it’s been an unbelievably rough time, and as the USA
and the wider world attempt to heal, the wireless industry will be
there to help every step of the way. At WBT we’d like to hear what
you think, including your thoughts on what the wireless industry
can do in the future to help prevent and deal with emergencies as
they happen.
robert@sys-con.com
@
14 www.WBT2.com S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1