Although the long, slow process of rebuilding the telephone network along the Gulf Coast areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina is just beginning, the efforts to restore communications service in ravaged parts of Mississippi and Louisiana are relying heavily on a variety of wireless services.

Wi-Fi, WiMAX and unlicensed spectrum wireless networks are being deployed throughout the region, initially to help emergency workers and relief efforts but also to enable the thousands who have been displaced in the storm's aftermath to have basic communications in shelters scattered throughout Mississippi and Louisiana.

Meanwhile, BellSouth is putting a $400 million to $600 million price tag on its recovery efforts, as it continues to restore service to areas that weren't completely wiped out by the storm, while trying to protect its facilities from further damage in reconstruction efforts.

“There are two sets of facts on this,” said Bill Smith, BellSouth chief technology officer. “One is the condition of our plant on an area-by-area basis, and the other is the condition of the community — there are people immediately needing service in some areas, and there are other areas where everything was flattened. In those cases, we are focusing on getting emergency procedures back.

“One of the major problems outside New Orleans is that the construction crews going in there and cleaning debris are pretty regularly cutting [fiber optic] facilities that are working. We are engaged in a massive effort to get with the power companies and all the construction personnel to educate them.”

New Orleans is a special case unto itself, Smith said. Early assessments show damage to power equipment but not to switches, which were generally located on upper floors, he said. But while BellSouth could turn up service there within 30 days, the carrier does not yet have the access it needs and faces the same potential environmental challenges anyone returning to New Orleans will face.

“We have our own hazardous materials team, and we have sent them into some of the offices in New Orleans,” Smith said. “They have done air quality assessments and so far, everything looks good there. There are still concerns about what health hazards will be concerning the water. The biggest challenge is still being able to get in there with people to do a complete assessment.”

BellSouth CEO Duane Ackerman and President of Network Services Rod Odom toured the area affected by Hurricane Katrina and were stunned to see water marks from the storm surge as high as 42 feet on one central office building, Smith said. “This is definitely the biggest thing we have ever seen in terms of damage,” he said.

In large part because of the sheer challenge of getting the wired network up and running — including the fiber-optic cables that feed cellular networks — newer forms of wireless technology are playing a bigger role in the aftermath of this hurricane than ever before.

WiMAX technology, much of it donated by Intel, Alvarion, Tropos Networks and others, is being used to feed Wi-Fi hot spots in parts of the affected region. Beginning with a meeting the Friday after Katrina hit, the FCC has been encouraging wireless ISPs (WISPs) to donate equipment and personnel to the area and a WISP organization known as Part-15.org has been coordinating those efforts.

Fixed wireless operators on the ground in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi were using the gear to provide both data communications and voice over IP (VoIP) to many of the shelters now housing people displaced by Katrina's devastation.

“The technology is very quick to deploy,” said John Seaman, director of enterprise sales for Trango Broadband Wireless, which manufactures outdoor broadband wireless equipment and provided that gear to the WISPs in the Gulf Coast region. “That is what they need in this situation, where there is no infrastructure.”

The gear Trango provided was used to link a network operations center with a remote tower using a series of 45 Mb/s Ethernet connections, said Shayne Rose, manager of ISP business sales for the company. From the tower, point-to-multipoint systems connected the shelter locations using 900 MHz non line-of-sight wireless.

Many WISPS are today offering VoIP, but this is one of its first uses in an emergency situation to allow shelter residents to call out over a wireless data network, said Chuck Eapen, Trango CEO.

“I think that one of the things that will definitely open up some eyes at the federal level is the utility of partnering with private entities like these WISPs,” Eapen said.

Others are hoping the performance of the technology will spur interest in broadband wireless in general, though that effect remain to be seen.

“There have been huge benefits to using this technology for disaster recovery, as there were after 9/11,” said Yankee Group wireless analyst Lindsay Schroth. “But whether or not these wireless technologies will be a replacement for fixed networks is a bigger question. I do think this proves the importance of having spectrum available for this kind of service in the event of a disaster, natural or otherwise.”