A New Generation of COWs

November 18, 2020 — Star Solutions’ COMPAC–N, a compact and easy to operate LTE COW for standalone operations or network extensions, is now available with integrated VoLTE. Ideal for Public Safety, Disaster Management, Relief Organizations, Government Agencies, Military and Enterprises.

Cellular-On-Wheels, aka COW’s, have been in use for many decades, typically deployed during emergencies where the mobile network has failed due to a disaster or supplementing existing network coverage with additional capacity.

Traditional COW’s have installed cellular basestation equipment on a large truck or trailer and required some sort of transmission backhaul such as microwave or satellite to connect to a centralized core network for operation. The industry has evolved over the years with COW’s that are more compact in size while also supporting more advanced and sophisticated cellular technology standards.

Star Solutions has developed and built emergency deployable solutions since 2003, supplying globally to law enforcement, disaster management agencies, public safety, and military organizations. Star Solutions’ emergency COW is unique in that it includes both Core and RAN network components so that it can be turned up and operation immediately in standalone mode. Star Solutions also recognized that ease of operation is of utmost importance because not all users are engineers and should not have to remember a complex set of procedures to operate during an emergency. Star Solutions deployable COW’s can be turned on simply by powering up the unit and be fully operational in a matter of minutes.

An LTE cellular network comes equipped with high speed broadband but no voice services without adding a costly IMS platform to support VoLTE services. In response to many of the market requests, Star Solutions has now made VoLTE support available on the COMPAC-N.