when there's a disaster, i don't think there's any interference if the rest of the network has been impaired or disabled at the affected area!

Our company provides something similar, up to 1.5KMs of coverage so maybe more practical. Battery power is important in the post disaster scenario. Often even the first reponders won't have proper communications set up yet and as a team need to be able to relay information to each other effectively. As someone noted, it requires some connectivity to a central location (presumeably in emergencies via satellite). Our solution works standalone actually, so has that benefit too.

An Italian company also has this EmergenyNET product, not sure if they are similar. Looks somewhat similar to what they announced.

You can find info on ours here - http://www.starsolutions.com/p...