As wildfires raged across southern California last year, San Diego Gas & Electric and Southern California Gas faced the daunting challenge of restoring electrical service to the fire-ravaged area. The task at hand: fixing more than 35 miles of overhead electrical wires and repairing 1,800-plus utility poles while thick smoke filled the air.

Sempra Energy, the utilities' parent company, had been through something like this four years earlier, when wind-whipped fires ripped through San Diego County. But last year's inferno was much worse. It burned 300,000 acres, and a half-million people were forced to evacuate their homes and take shelter in hotels, churches, and Qualcomm Stadium, home of the San Diego Chargers football franchise.

Sempra's IT team moved quickly to establish a dozen or so military-style command and communications centers in the area. One overarching requirement was to ensure that there was adequate infrastructure and bandwidth to support the response effort; the utility company's data requirements had more than doubled since the previous fires.

Workers in the field used cell phones, BlackBerrys, and satellite phones for voice calls, while a Motorola DataTac network supported basic data communications. Where available, Sempra also used 802.11a Wi-Fi hotspots operated by telecom carriers to give workers network connectivity. The company had recently upgraded to Gigabit Ethernet, so its backbone network was in good shape.

Yet, even more bandwidth and on-the-go capacity were needed to support the emergency effort. For example, a mapping program that churns data to give real-time updates on power line status required high throughput. Within hours, Sempra's Internet service provider bumped up data capacity by 25%. Verizon Wireless and Sprint, meanwhile, delivered nearly 200 AirCard cell modems to enable mobile broadband access over the carriers' EV-DO data networks.

The radio system was critical to crews in the field. Sempra deployed a Motorola SmartZone 900-MHz voice radio system with solar-powered repeaters. The company had previously worked with local police and fire departments to ensure interoperability with their radios.