What’s better than a superhero?
Meet THOR, the Verizon disaster response vehicle in a league of its own.
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Whether it’s a wildfire, hurricane or other emergency, our Verizon Response Team (VRT) is always ready to rush to a crisis to maintain and restore connectivity for our customers and first responders when they need it most.
Our team has always relied on a menagerie of types of field equipment, referred to as The Barnyard. This includes COWs (Cell On Wheels), COLTs (Cell On Light Trucks), CROWs (Cellular Repeater On Wheels) and GOATs (Generator On A Trailer).
At the same time, the team continues to innovate. This summer, the VRT introduced a next-generation communication and disaster response prototype called THOR, which stands for Tactical Humanitarian Operations Response. It’s our first mobile 4G/5G/5G Edge-ready platform and it comes fully loaded, to say the least.
THOR is National Incident Management System — or NIMS-1 — compliant and offers full radio interoperability and onboard Joint Operations Center services. It provides a multitude of connectivity options, spanning private 5G, commercial 4G LTE, Land Mobile Radio and tactical radio, wireless networking, microwave, mesh and more. Other components include 4G/5G radios, a rear command center, a camera, a six-seat cabin and an exterior touch screen display.
It also comes equipped with a tethered drone to capture an aerial view that can be fed over the network to devices on the ground and the command center below, potentially helping those in public safety or the military with risk and damage assessment, situational awareness or search and rescue operations.
Check out the video above to see more of THOR’s features and high-tech components, all of which were on display recently when the vehicle was introduced at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in California.
As a prototype, there are currently no plans to build a second THOR, as designs for future 5G-enabled response vehicles continue to evolve.
Congratulations to the members of the VRT who had a hand in developing and testing this innovative vehicle, literally unlike anything else in the world. It’s another example of how V Teamers continue to push themselves to be better tomorrow than they were today, serving our customers anytime, anywhere, under any network conditions.
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