Committee revises power‑outage and communications chapter; discusses Wi‑Fi calling, providers, radios and a mesh pilot

The Admitigation Committee spent the bulk of its April 22 meeting reviewing the draft plan’s power outage and communications chapters and agreed on a series of editorial and substantive changes to clarify risks and mitigation initiatives.

Committee members asked staff to remove lengthy anecdotal histories about a single telephone provider and instead present a concise list of how residents typically get telephone and Internet service in Castle Valley. The group suggested a short provider list such as: Frontier (DSL legacy), Emery (fiber optic), River Canyon Wireless (fixed Wi‑Fi) and “various satellite providers” (for example, Starlink or HughesNet). Members emphasized the plan should avoid editorial judgments such as “fairly reliable” and instead state observed performance and known limitations.

On specific communication technologies, members agreed to add Wi‑Fi calling (sometimes used by residents) and to note that voice‑over‑IP/VoIP services and Wi‑Fi calling have different technical implications for outages. Committee members reported talking with a local provider—referred to in the meeting as Royce—who has roughly 60 customers in the valley and operates a fixed‑wireless service; staff will confirm provider names and affiliations for the document.

The committee recorded several operational clarifications: many consumer telephone services rely on battery backup at provider equipment and may keep service for hours (members cited about 8 hours as a typical battery runtime for some equipment), and power outages commonly degrade Internet and VoIP/Wi‑Fi calling unless residents have an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) or satellite service.

Members noted the Capital Valley Fire Department (identified in the draft as the local fire district) no longer maintains a satellite phone; the committee asked staff to insert a sentence stating the current communications resources at the fire district and the town office base station (the committee said the town office has a radio base station and that the radios were purchased in 2018).

On mitigation initiatives, the committee discussed and generally supported three priorities: upgrading or increasing radio communications capability for emergency use; developing or updating the emergency operations plan’s communications section; and testing a low‑power mesh network (a two‑way long‑range Wi‑Fi device demonstrated at the meeting) to deliver targeted short messages across the valley without heavy infrastructure. Members discussed the feasibility, cost range and political acceptability of each:

- Radio upgrades: members estimated higher‑quality emergency radios or base‑station upgrades at roughly $800–$1,000 per unit for equipment examples discussed; they recommended treating the item as a mid‑cost (score ~3/5) project and flagged that inexpensive consumer radios may fall into a regulatory gray area and should be limited to emergency use only.

- Emergency operations communications plan: members agreed the town already maintains an Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) and recommended updating the EOP communications section rather than writing a separate plan; staff was asked to mark whether the communications section needs revision and to note the update frequency required by grant programs.

- Mesh network pilot: participants described a small, low‑power long‑range Wi‑Fi mesh device that can propagate short messages across neighboring units and does not require centralized backbone infrastructure. Members supported keeping a pilot in the plan as “experimental” and suggested a cost range of roughly $245 per device (shipping and configuration variables were cited), recommending staff capture a 2–4 cost range because actual implementation costs are uncertain.

Committee members also reaffirmed that River Canyon Wireless (the fixed‑Wi‑Fi provider) launched service around 2017 and that Emery provides fiber backbone access for the region; staff will verify dates and include a short historical note for context rather than full paragraphs.

The committee made no formal funding commitments but directed staff to: replace long anecdotal paragraphs with a concise provider list, add Wi‑Fi calling and VoIP clarifications, document that the fire district no longer has a satellite phone, add the town base station and the 2018 radio purchase year, and include the three mitigation initiatives above (radio upgrade, EOP communications update, and mesh‑pilot as experimental). Staff will supply cost estimates and refined wording for the prioritized actions at a future meeting.