Hey and frank,
When you say "instant communications", I doubt that you mean that one of these imagined sanswire products simply floats aloft, fully outfitted with the proper electronics, as though the trembling earth itself set off some automatic deployment device and it was up in the air within seconds of the earthquake to provide instant communications.
No, I'm sure you understand that in this case communications were immediately knocked out and were to stay knocked out, until sufficient material and personnel could be transported to the site to correct problems. You are saying that the imagined sanswire product should be included among these prioritized assets.
What makes you think a precious few pounds of electronics slung off a balloon is going to fix it all anyway? Discovery channel?
Last time I looked at a cell tower, those antennae, not to mention cable and electronics, (located on the ground) and the power for them, all look quite heavy. So are you talking about some magic box here, that probably doesn't even exist, for what the Discovery Channel babe says is just a matter of dangling off of a gas bag? For goodness sake, why don't they just put a dozen of these magic boxes on a dozen aeorostats (you know, like in those photos of D-Day) send them up and fire them up????? The magic stuff is aboard the Global Hawk, and they were flying around over Haiti within hours, yet no cell service. Why?
Clearly, the key technology to address outages is the correct electronics equipment, power capabilities, and technicians to set it up right. These requirements, and the attendant logistical challenges of getting them all there exist with or without sanswire. The military established sophisticated communications in Haiti within hours such that everything they needed to expand their deployment (see my earlier links)was included. That is as instant as it gets. Again, if they needed technicians to strap electronics onto aerostats to meet a crisis need, they would have had them there, with bells on.
You have assumed that the needed electronics can't be deployed any other way. Secondly, given that it can be deployed another way your real issue is with how the relief effort has been prioritized. You apparently feel that cell phone service is more important than command and control, search and rescue, water, food, and security. That you would let the cell phone companies in to equip the imagined sanswire devices before the other more important things. Those in charge of the relief effort obviously disagree with you, and so do I.
Sanswire is utterly unnecessary in Haiti imo, but it appears that for some reason, some would have people in the US have emotional beliefs to the contrary. However, that is irrelevant to saving lives in Haiti.
AI
