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Comment by 0b0001 | Hacker News Reader

Firefighters (or others) could set up a "no-frills" base station on their truck.

These systems include a power generator, servers, and a 2G GSM base station for ranges of about 10km.

They don't even require any Internet connection, since their only purpose is to allow emergency calls and SMS. Any cell phone can set up an emergency call then - no need for a special SIM card.

Vodafone has a humanitarian mission that sets up these systems all over the world. (They're using Huawei, though)

https://www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/resources/mobile-n...

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PodRunner by Rescue 42 (no affiliation) in Chico, California is assembling devices designed for precisely this. Some fire departments and public safety agencies, including CAL FIRE and Cal OES, are using them already.

One interesting thing is they are also selling them to businesses to enable business continuity during power outages and their site discusses their use of their device in the current blackouts.

https://thepodrunner.com

https://thepodrunner.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Star-Run...

Their website is down.

That’s if you just ignore licensing requirements for these very crowded frequencies.

I'm pretty sure firefighters could get such a license in the event of emergency -- or just operate without such a license.

[Edit: or you ask some technician of your local operator to bring the system up :)]

That same operator that brought down their own equipment for some apparently nefarious reason?

They could borrow stingrays from the cops. And they would be in operation when the regular towers are down.

Do modern phones even support 2g anymore?

Why wouldn't they? As technology improves, it's a relatively small area of silicon in the chipsets.

Security could be one of the reasons -- 2G is the only technology remaining with no authentication of the network, and plenty of other issues.

But I agree with you.

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