Operation Connect Carolina

The day is here! We're transporting the first system out today! Destination? Spruce Pine, North Carolina, a town that most people have likely never heard of, even though it's one of the most important places in the world for advancing technologies such as AI and solar energy. Why is this town of just over 2,000 inhabitants so important? To manufacture semiconductors and solar panels, companies need crucibles, or containers in which single-crystal silicon can be heated and melted to create silicon wafers. A high-purity quartz crucible is the optimal container to ensure the purity of molten silicon when manufacturing the single-crystal silicon. As it turns out, there are only a few places in the world that have ultra-high-quality quartz, and Spruce Pine has both the largest amount and the highest quality quartz by a pretty large margin. We're incredibly excited to get Spruce Pine connected, and want to thank Aaron Huslage, David J Fincannon, Robert Hendrickson, Jeff Anderson at Teleport, the folks at RiPSIM Technologies, the folks at Cumucore, MosoLabs, Kymeta Corporation, Lenovo, Mincey's Graphics (they donated the vehicle magnet) and everyone else who's helped to and continues to help propel this effort. #5g #connectivity #hurricanehelene #disasterrecovery

Join us this week to make a difference!

We are live in Roan Mountain! This past weekend, Aaron Huslage and Jeff Anderson delivered our first deployment powered by Kymeta Corporation and Eutelsat OneWeb connectivity. We are providing service to hundreds of people in a valley that was devastated by Hurricane Helene. We are excited by this partnership and the enterprise grade connectivity it provides to those in need. Thanks as always to MosoLabs, Cumucore, CEEATTLE Studio, Elevating Cyber, RiPSIM Technologies, and all of the volunteers who are making this possible.

We are working so hard. Folks like David J Fincannon are leading the charge.

Lets GO!

We apologize that this update has taken a little while. We’ve been working hard in the background, and there are a few things that we’d like to share: ? All of the hardware is in place and ready to go, and we have 4 units ready to deploy. A number of people helped with the build of these systems, which you can see below. ? We’re still trying to source Starlink units in order to build more units - that’s the primary factor limiting our ability to build more systems ? We have faced some challenges with the mobile core software, which has resulted in a setback in our delivery estimates ? Aaron and the engineers have been working day and night (remember, this is a global effort!) to get these systems running reliably - the last thing we want is to send things that don’t work to a place where they really need to work ? We’ve heard from volunteers who were just in Western North Carolina that things are still really rough in many places and that the need for communications is very real and currently unmet Designing and building new communications systems is not like building a computer or putting together a wi-fi network - it's far more complex and challenging - but everyone who’s actively involved in the project is working tirelessly to make it work. We knew we’d face obstacles along this journey, but are committed to following through on our mission to restore Internet connectivity to as many places in Western NC that need it as possible.

UPDATE: TL;DR - Our first systems go out on Thursday!! More details below. We've been quiet on the socials today but ultra-busy in the background! Our engineering team has been hard at work building, testing, troubleshooting, and debugging the systems to get them up and running reliably. This is an incredible team effort, spanning continents (Cumucore, who provided the 5G packet core, is based in Finland) and incorporating many hours of voluntary effort from multiple brilliant engineering minds. As any engineer knows, putting together a production-ready system in four days* is an incredible feat, and we want to thank everyone involved for their tireless, selfless contributions. We will post an update in the future that highlights these individuals working behind the scenes to make the technical portion of this initiative succeed. Huge thanks to Beverly Tan and Ecovate 3D for STEPing up to help (sorry, couldn't resist!) with 3D printing the Starlink antenna mounts and Information Technology Disaster Resource Center (ITDRC) for their partnership and support. The photo is one of our volunteers, LoyCurtis Smith 'Tetrising' various components that form our Rapid-Deploy Connectivity Hubs into its enclosure to figure out their ideal locations. Thanks, Curtis! * We received the base stations on October 4 #5G #connectivity #hurricanehelene #disasterrecovery #3dprinting

The amazing team from Kymeta Corporation brought some goodies to help us in our efforts! These commercial-grade satellite communications terminals will enable us to get reliable broadband Internet capabilities, which we will then beam out via cellular signals using our Rapid-Deploy Connectivity Hubs. One of the coolest parts of the story is that the technology behind Kymeta’s products was developed right here in Durham, N.C. at Duke University! Thank you again, Chris and Mark Garretson ! #5G #hurricanehelene #internet #connectivity

Video update! Aaron Huslage provides a behind-the-scenes look at how we're building the mobile 5G systems that will be deployed in the field in Western North Carolina. A big thank you to the American Underground in downtown Durham, NC for providing us with the space to build and test these systems! #5G #hurricanehelene #disasterrecovery #northcarolina

Systems are being tested right now! #5g #disasterrecovery MosoLabs Cumucore RiPSIM Technologies