The Instant Network was deployed in the Philippines following last year's catastrophic typhoon — The Instant Network was deployed in the Philippines following last year’s catastrophic typhoon

The Vodafone Foundation, Vodafone’s social investments arm, has taken the wraps off Instant Network Mini, an 11kg mobile “network in a backpack” that the global mobile operator says can be deployed in just 10 minutes, helping aid workers carry out crucial work in disaster situations.

The product is a robust backpack that can be taken as hand luggage on commercial flights and deployed by non-technical staff, the company says in a statement. Instant Network Mini can provide up to five concurrent calls within a radius of 100m and allows for text messages to be sent to thousands of people, useful in an emergency situation.

The product follows on from the original Vodafone Foundation Instant Network, a portable network in four suitcases weighing 100kg. The original Instant Network equipment, which offered a much larger operating radius of up to 5km, was deployed in the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan slammed into the country last November. That deployment carried 1,4m text messages and 443 288 calls over a period of 29 days.

The new Instant Network Mini was developed with Vodafone in Spain and Vodafone Foundation partners Huawei and Telecoms Sans Frontières. It provides a secure 2G GSM network. The GSM base transceiver station connects to a host network over a satellite connection, the statement says. “The equipment is particularly suited to providing a GSM mobile network in the immediate aftermath of a disaster and for delivering mobile money solutions to inaccessible areas.”