When cell towers are damaged or overloaded, phones work harder to stay connected, using up more power. Weak signals, frequent reconnecting, and increased activity from the phone's modem are among the main reasons the battery does not last as long in these situations.
Signals from Global Navigation Satellite Systems are quite vulnerable. They are exceptionally weak, meaning that any radio noise near their frequency, accidental or malicious, can interfere with reception. I am confident that there are people in every government who understand the problem. The challenge is getting leadership to both understand and act to reduce the risk.
In the middle of the response, as we were communicating safety and recovery information, other public officials and I were targeted. A mix of people were insinuating that we weren't doing our job. They were also spreading misinformation. As I reflect, what was really surprising to me at the time was getting attacked for my religion. I'm Jewish. There were a lot of people online who could say anything and everything without knowing me - very hurtful things.
Long-range radio waves can pass through obstacles more easily, which makes them perfect for monitoring expansive factories or outdoor infrastructure. A recent report by Fabrity highlighted that these systems use very little power. This allows sensors to operate for 5 to 10 years on a single battery. Using such tech means you do not have to install expensive wiring across your entire site.
Apple's satellite features were originally designed for emergencies, allowing iPhone users to contact emergency services when cellular and Wi-Fi coverage is unavailable. With recent versions of iOS, Apple has expanded those capabilities to include sending and receiving messages via satellite. This makes it possible to stay in touch with friends and family from remote locations where traditional networks do not reach, such as hiking trails, rural areas or offshore locations.
On February 28, ships navigating the Strait of Hormuz started appearing on tracking screens in places they couldn't possibly be. They appeared to be sitting on airport runways, parked on Iranian land, and clustered at nuclear power plants. More than 1,100 commercial vessels had their navigation systems scrambled in a single day following US-Israeli airstrikes on Iran, bringing a waterway that handles a fifth of the world's oil exports to a halt.
Acting on behalf of the Home Office's Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme (ESMCP), the UKSA invited participants to explore how existing and emerging technology (including satellites) could augment the ESN to provide coverage in remote areas and "locations which are challenging to service using standard transmission methods." Starlink is the satellite operator with the most developed direct-to-cell services, now selling these with T-Mobile in the US and Kyivstar in Ukraine, among others.
Across the country, emergency call centers are short-staffed, underfunded, and losing dispatchers faster than they can replace them. A 2023 survey found that one in four 911 positions nationwide is vacant, and 36% of centers reported having fewer positions filled in 2022 than in 2019. Martinez explains to Business Insider how dispatchers decide who gets help first for police, ambulance, and fire services, why they sometimes have to drop one call to save another, and the "caller hacks" that can literally save your life.
The other day we were scrolling through r/meshtastic and someone asks: "Why does my device show 10+ satellites in view while my buddy's barely sees 8?" Good question. Really good question, actually. And it's about to take us down a rabbit hole that involves atomic clocks, Cold War competition, European independence, and why your Meshtastic node cares about all of this.
The study showed that annual investments in public safety LTE/5G infrastructure and devices reached $5bn in 2025, driven by both new projects and the expansion of existing dedicated, hybrid government-commercial, and secure mobile virtual network operator (MVNO)/multi-operator core network (MOCN) networks. The report observed that a myriad of fully dedicated, hybrid government-commercial and secure MVNO/MOCN-based public safety LTE and 5G networks are operational or in the process of being rolled out throughout the globe.
This week, meet a reader we'll Regomize as "Patrick" who told us he once installed an extra shelf of storage for a NAS at a local council office in Australia. The job initially went well. "The staff left me alone in the computer room while I was tidying up the paperwork," Patrick wrote. While he handled that administrivia, something caught Patrick's eye.
By the end of the year, Northwood, based in El Segundo, California, had shown the ability to build eight of these Portal arrays a month. And in January the company had deployed operational Portal antennas across two continents. These deployments, which comprise an area of 8 to 15 meters, have the equivalent capability of a 7-meter parabolic dish, said Griffin Cleverly, co-founder and chief technical officer of Northwood.
Our iron giant is a deep space radio telescope, with an antenna dish measuring forty-six metres across, the largest instrument of its kind in Canada. Starting in the 1960s, the Algonquin Radio Observatory performed a number of cutting-edge scientific projects, including joining SETI's early efforts, in the 1970s and 1980s, to find signatures of alien life-spectrum emissions from water molecules, artificial transmitter signals. No luck.
