When the masts go dark, the meeting point still gets the message out.
Any smartphone, no app. A short message leaves the emergency meeting point by satellite, and what people need to know is on the point's own page, with no mobile network and no internet behind it.
A MeshSat initiative, built in the EU for the EU's first-72-hours goal. The MeshSat Resilience Hub is the kit and the page we bring to your meeting point.
- Masts down
- Any smartphone
- The point's WiFi page
- The MeshSat kit
- Iridium satellite
- Family and the crisis team
The film: about two minutes.
Captions are in the player’s menu. On YouTube the film plays in English, German, Dutch and Greek. Watch on YouTube
What MeshSat adds to the meeting point.
A page, not an app
A visitor joins the point's WiFi and a page opens on their smartphone. They write a short message to family or to the crisis team.
Out by satellite
A volunteer approves it, and the kit sends it over Iridium satellite. No mast, cable or internet has to work.
Delivered, and answered
The message arrives by SMS or email. The reply comes back to the same page, under the visitor's code.
The points stay linked
Volunteers between points talk over LoRa radios. Radio clubs and rescue teams can join over APRS, TETRA or DMR.
Safe and well
Visitors can put their name on the point's board, with a short status and place. Anyone on the point's WiFi who looks for them finds them by their full first or last name. A line stays 30 days, is never sent anywhere, and its writer can take it off with a code.
Offline knowledge
The same page holds what people need to know: your region's own texts first, then the national preparedness advice, a map of the area and a reference library. It is loaded before the crisis and needs no internet.
Where an internet link is up, MeshSat uses it. When it's down, text still goes out.
Look things up at the point, even with no signal.
When the network fails, people come to the point with questions: what happened, where to get water, what to do with a generator, how to reach family. On the point's own page they look it up on their own phone, with no app and no account, so the volunteers' time goes to what only people can do.
Your words first
The page opens with what your crisis organisation wants people to know: the point's hours and services and your region's own texts. You choose what is on it, and it is loaded before the crisis.
Official advice and the map
The national preparedness advice for residents, a map of the area with the way to the next point, and the safety basics people ask about: what to do in a power cut, generators and carbon monoxide, medicines and medical devices.
A reference library
Wikipedia in Dutch, German, Greek and English, a medical encyclopedia and travel guides: tens of gigabytes of knowledge that need no signal, marked clearly as reference, not official advice.
No subscription, no cloud, no account: it lives on the kit that already stands at the point. Wikipedia and OpenStreetMap content under their own open licences.
What a visitor sees on their phone.
The kit's own message page, in the phone's language: English, German, Dutch or Greek. Names and numbers are examples.
Write a short message to a phone number or an email address. 
Keep the pickup code. A volunteer checks the message before it leaves. 
Waiting for the satellite. A link can take minutes to hours. 
The reply waits under the same code.
What happens to a message
- Checked, emergencies first
- A volunteer at the point checks each message before it leaves. Ticking “This is an emergency” sends the message first and marks it SOS for whoever receives it. It does not call 112.
- What leaves the kit
- Only the address, the message, the name and the pickup code, through the MeshSat Hub, which sends them as SMS or email from the town's account.
- What is kept, and for how long
- The kit keeps the message, the address, the name and the reply, and deletes them a set number of days after the point closes; its send log follows its own retention. No account, no app, no tracking. The town or organisation that runs the point is responsible for the data.
What we offer.
An exercise day
We bring a kit to your next meeting-point exercise and run it with your volunteers, the messages and the offline library on their own phones. Afterwards you get a short written summary of the day: how many messages went out, how long they took to leave and how long the replies took.
A funding-ready quote
A one-page quote for the kit, the message page and the offline library with your own texts, for your town to attach to its funding application.
Or email us at hello@safertogether.eu.
Berlin, January 2026
Not even emergency calls got through.
- 100,000 people in 45,000 households were without power for days after an arson attack on 3 January.
- Mobile masts held for about 30 minutes.
- Of the 45 emergency meeting points Berlin had announced, just under a third were ready.
Sources: berlin.de, 11 August 2026; KOMMUNAL on the Berlin expert commission, 7 July 2026; BAKS working paper 2026, citing the Berlin audit office; Tagesspiegel, 30 June 2026; the Berlin Senate's answer of 24 April 2026.
The gap: the point can't get a message out for everyone.
In Spain's blackout of April 2025, phones that didn't work, landline or mobile, were what people missed most after electricity at home: 55.5 % against 62.1 %, in a survey of 1,752 people over the next two days.
What a meeting point usually has
- Power: a generator or a battery station
- Light, heat, a megaphone, a battery radio to listen
- A satellite phone: one caller at a time
- An internet dish: works while it has power and its service is up
- Radio amateurs who pass the emergency calls on
Baden-Württemberg's model kit for its meeting points: generator, lights, megaphone, DAB+ radio.
A study for Germany's federal civil protection office (BBK), 38 interviews with municipalities in 2024, found that communication with residents is “mostly one-way”: emergency calls in, warnings out.
What is missing
A way for every visitor to send a short message out with their own phone, get the reply, and look up what they need to know, when there is no mobile network and no internet.
The Dutch national pilot asks the same question: how can an emergency support point provide the information and communication people need? NIPV, which runs the pilot, lists exchanging satellite messages among the ways a point can put people back in touch with family.
Towns across Europe are already setting up these points.
Emergency meeting points
Notfalltreffpunkte, Baden-Württemberg
The state's own advice: when phones stop working, you leave your emergency message at your Notfalltreffpunkt.
notfalltreffpunkt-bw.de
Emergency support points
Noodsteunpunten, the Netherlands
Groningen's pilot plans for a 72-hour power cut in which 112 can't be reached. Practical tests with residents on 7 and 14 November 2026, €580,000 for 2026.
Veiligheidsregio Groningen, progress report, 2026
Two Iridium satellites catch the sun. This is the network the message takes when nothing on the ground is left.
Photo: Dylan O'Donnell, CC0.
Europe now urges every region to plan for the first 72 hours.
The Commission's guidelines are recommendations, not binding rules. We build MeshSat to help meet them; we are not affiliated with the Commission. Here is what the EU texts say, in their own words.
“The first 72 hours of a crisis are critical.”
“Reinforce crisis and emergency communication with citizens … to ensure a capacity to reach citizens under all conditions.”
“… to ensure redundancy and reduce the risk of a single point of failure.”
How MeshSat helps meet them.
| What the EU texts recommend | What MeshSat does |
|---|---|
| Communication as an essential need in the first 72 hoursC(2026) 8250, action 28 | Anyone at the point sends and receives short messages without a mobile network |
| Reach citizens under all conditionsNiinistö, recommendation 2 | Messages in and out over satellite, LoRa, SMS and radio when the masts are down |
| Several channels, so one failed link doesn't stop the messageNiinistö, box 6 | Each message goes over whichever link works: satellite, LoRa, SMS, APRS, TETRA or DMR |
| Planned channels and regular exercisesC(2026) 8250, action 27; Niinistö, box 6 | We bring a kit to your exercise and run it with your volunteers |
| Accessible formats and languagesC(2026) 8250, actions 27 and 33 | A plain browser page on any smartphone, in English, German, Dutch and Greek |
| Volunteers and mutual support between householdsC(2026) 8250, action 28 | Volunteers between points on LoRa radios, one message flow for all |
| Schools as community resilience hubsC(2026) 8250, action 29 | A school can host a point: the kit comes in one case |
| Reliable information for everyone, through trusted messengers and several channelsC(2026) 8250 | Your region's texts and the national preparedness advice on the point's own page, offline, on any smartphone |
Not ours: food, water, medicine, power, education campaigns, and anything military. MeshSat is civil only.
Invite us, or ask for a quote.
Four fields are enough. A person answers once you have confirmed by email.
MeshSat
A small team in Leiden, the Netherlands, EU.
- Kyriakos Papadopoulos founder and lead engineer
- Elli Zafeiridou Georgiadou co-founder and project manager
- George Zafeiridis public relations and communications
Civil only. We don't work with organisations that develop, produce, integrate or operate weapon systems. Read our Mission and Use Policy.
Invite us to your next exercise.
Or read more at meshsat.net