- If you've ever wanted to see the internet,
this is the internet.
- Hey everyone, it's Brenda Stolyar,
Mashable's tech reporter.
And today we're here at an undisclosed location somewhere
in New Jersey,
checking out AT&T's network disaster recovery warehouse.
We're getting an inside look into all
the different technologies AT&T uses
to restore communication services
during natural and man-made disasters.
- The center that you're in today
is one of our warehouse locations that's part of
our national disaster recovery program.
Our mission is to help recover any service within AT&T,
of course, wire line and wireless services.
So this location supports both
our internal disaster recovery needs plus
our FirstNet needs, which started in 2017,
focused at providing emergency communication services
to police, fire, EMS, FEMA,
ensuring that even though there's congestion in
the AT&T commercial network, that we have the ability
to support public safety for them
to complete their missions.
- For me, one of the most compelling experiences that
I've had was Hurricane Harvey, driving through Houston
and just seeing the houses and the piles
of debris in front of those houses.
Everything somebody owns that can get waterlogged was kind
of piled up in front of their house.
And imagine you going home
and just throwing everything out that you own.
Just seeing that kind of devastation really,
really, really sticks with you.
- When we went into Puerto Rico, after Hurricane Maria,
it was absolutely devastated.
They still hadn't cleared off the roads, there was no power.
There was no water, people didn't have enough to eat.
They were waiting in lines overnight just to get gasoline.
But when we would come in to set equipment up
if there was anything that we needed, people would
have literally given us the shirt off
their backs to be able to help us.
They were just so happy that somebody was there to help
them restore service so they
can communicate back with their families.
What we're going to talk about now in the area that we're in
is more on the wire restoration side of the house.
And think of this more as what we do on a day-to-day basis
from a natural disaster type recovery scenario.
Hurricane Michael goes in, it hits the Florida panhandle
and decimates Panama City, Mexico Beach area.
The satellite holter or Sat Holts as we call them,
mobile command truck and any other number
of emergency communication vehicles are what we're
going to roll in to our base camp that we determined
or set up in that particular area.
And then we're going to dispatch them out to
the most impacted areas to
do individual restorations as we need to.
- This is the internet.
If you think about all your houses and you're all going
through Comcast and Xfinity and all those things,
and they all go someplace, some big hub,
this is what a hub might look like.
So this is what we would call a CRS router.
So what you see here is multiple,
what we call bays of the equipment.
Basically, this is all one giant router.
When these are operating each one of these is 400 gigabits
and we've got about 800 of those coming in.
This trailer is designed to recover a hub
if something catastrophic happens.
So something big, huge earthquake, hurricane,
some kind of terrible event happens and affects service,
we can roll trailers like this in and quickly restore
those hubs even if the entire place is destroyed.
- Do you have to essentially wait until
that central hub goes down, do you?
- So, we are always ready.
So there is no, you know, hey, we've got to ramp up because
we know something bad happens or hurricane's coming.
We are always ready.
So if you told me right now that this trailer has to go,
maybe within 20, 30 minutes I could have it shut down,
packed and we'd be scheduling truckers to come.
So what we're in now, this is what we call tool and supply.
So this has everything from a nail and a hammer to
a welding unit, to leaf blowers, to shovels,
to drill presses, to saws.
You name it, we have it in here.
If we need it, it's pretty much going to be in here.
Typically hardware stores, retail places are closed
after a large disaster.
We bring our own tools and all our own support gear
so that we don't need to tax the local resources.
- This is one of our new communications vehicles.
This is one of our next innovations.
This would be there staging for the Superbowl.
This would be our response into the hurricanes.
Instead of taking all this equipment,
put it in a towel and go, this whole vehicle goes.
It's got a restroom, it has a place to sleep,
it's got power, it's got water.
FirstNet was built with and for first responders,
meeting their needs for the future.
Not saying that we built the network
and that's all we're doing,
we are constantly evolving to support them in the field.
And that's what this vehicle is really all about.
- At the same time this technology advances,
we've invested over $650 million into the NDR program.
So do we need a new helicopter type of an asset?
Do we need an amphibious vehicle type asset?
So we're constantly looking at that.
The one thing that makes this job unique,
it's similar to police and fire and EMS,
where they're directly impacting the public.
We have a very similar type of impact.
So if we're responding to Hurricane Michael
as an example, in the Gulf, and there's
no communication capability for miles and miles.
And people are stranded or don't have the ability
to contact their loved ones, it's really, really important
for us to get there as soon as possible
and turn up communication services.
And that's probably one of the key areas that we feel good
about, making sure that we have an impact to
the community that's been impacted.
- Clearly the job is not for everybody in terms
of getting out there, putting in the long hours
and working through those conditions.
But for those of us that work together all the time,
it literally, most people will tell you it's the best job
that they've ever had.
The comradery of the team that goes in on the ground.
You know, there are folks that I've met on this team that
I've worked with on countless storms.
And we would help each other out with anything
that we needed to help out.
So you really get a sense of belonging when
you're here working with your peers.
- One of the things I'm most proud of is knowing that we're
always ready, because we practiced so much,
because we've done this for real so many times.
I sleep well at night because I know
if something bad happens, we're ready to go.
- And it's going to kill me to leave.
I've been doing this so long but, you know, it's time to go.
You know, when you got gray hairs, it's time to go.