WASHINGTON-Moving from a wired to a wireless world in the future could save the Federal Emergency Management Agency as much as $10 million, said Tim Ritter, chief of disaster response in the FEMA engineering group.
Ritter made his comments at last week’s meeting of the Wireless Innovations in Communications Initiative.
FEMA is transitioning from desktops to laptops and wireline phones to wireless phones-including Globalstar phones.
Because FEMA sets up and takes down temporary disaster offices on a regular basis, wireless is more efficient than using wireline systems.
We use “wireless technology in place of wiring a temporary facility. … It takes time and money to put in cable,” said Ritter.
The saving of time and money is being “parlay[ed] into better equipment,” Ritter said.
