Kymeta Partners with the City of Redmond for Cascadia Rising Solutions
Kymeta— the communications company that is completing the connectivity fabric for everything, everywhere—joined the City of Redmond and multiple partners for Cascadia Rising Solutions – a full-scale emergency management exercise designed to assess disaster response and recovery preparedness in the event of a large-scale earthquake or similarly catastrophic incident.
The two day long exercise was supported by partners from across the United States and Canada, as well as volunteers from the City of Redmond and surrounding areas. Kymeta was an industry partner in this event providing its hybrid connectivity solution, which leverages both satellite and cellular networks, to multiple city vehicles. Kymeta’s electronically steered, flat panel terminals were installed on a fire battalion commander’s vehicle, a medical response vehicle, and a large mobile emergency command center vehicle.
Kymeta’s unique hybrid platform enables reliable and robust communications for first responders in a range of environments and field operations where deployment speed and high mobility are critical factors. Kymeta solutions also help communities restore essential connectivity in the aftermath of catastrophic events such as a significant earthquake. During the exercise, the solution enabled communications capabilities for response teams, including voice and video phone calls and image transfer during the simulated outages.
Cascadia Rising took place at several locations throughout the city of Redmond. The drills consisted of three rounds of activities to challenge reaction and response times in cases of limited technology, transitional access to technology, and access to advanced high technology. Kymeta demonstrated the ease of use of its connectivity solutions platform, and its ability to seamlessly integrate with first responders’ existing devices without the need for additional training.
“Partnering with the City of Redmond for this exercise allowed Kymeta to demonstrate our connectivity solutions when reliance on communications is needed most,” said Ben Posthuma, Kymeta Product Manager for Advanced Connectivity. “We can’t control an unexpected natural disaster, but we can prepare to mitigate for a communications breakdown and how to respond through exercises such as this.”
[Originally posted by Kymeta — Oct 31, 2019]