This post is related to my more general comments on the
Handling of the Gustav Hurricane EmergencyWhilst in the US the Emergency Services, Police National Guard and Coastguard, have dedicated Radio Networks and Landlines to maintain their Communications, Civilians are dependent on their normal service providers.
As my interest in telecommunications is both professional and personal, my attention was quickly drawn to an article by:
Rajani Baburajan on TMC Net entitled
Service Providers Step up to the Challenges Presented by Hurricane Gustav.
Most of this post is made up of comments on extracts from her article, which starts:
The strength and weaknesses of communications technologies are revealed during disasters. People depend on these technologies during emergencies, and during such times offering flawless services is of utmost concern to providers.
The impact of Hurricane Gustav is the latest example of such a situation. Maintaining telecom infrastructure during hurricanes is a difficult task, made more difficult by increased volume of calls from people checking on friends, colleagues and loved ones in the hurricane zone — volume that can result in overloaded networks.
Extremely well put, I wish I could write as clearly and concisely as Rajani. In the UK we tend to forget how easily Mobile Networks can be overloaded especially when a very large number of simultaneous calls are attempted from the same cellular cluster. In the US this can be exacerbated by operator coverage limitations, which in the UK are only experienced by a relatively small percentage of users regardless of operator.
As for Landline Telephony, both in the US and the UK, there is an almost religious belief we will be able to connect a landline to landline call, but actually this is NOT the case. Whilst landline networks normally have a large contingency volume handling capacity they can under certain circumstance reach this. Especially if there has been damage to local, or enroute network infrastructure. Whilst my limited knowledge of the UK Disaster procedures for Landline Networks is at least 15 Years out of date, I assume the Cascading Priorities still apply with at its most extreme only Government and nationally vital telephone numbers will be allowed to connect calls.
Back to the Gustav Emergency: The two dominant operators in the affect areas are the resurgent AT&T and T-Mobile. Again quoting from Rajani's article:
In anticipation of power outages and network jams that can occur during hurricanes, major service providers including AT&T and T-Mobile this weekend prepared their teams to deal with hurricane Gustav in a competitive manner.
The last two words which I have highlighted caused me to raise an eyebrow! Dealing with a disaster of potentially massive proportions in a competitive manner, hmm, surely this is a typo, obviously this should be
cooperative manner.
No it wasn't a mistake as the next few paragraphs relating to AT&T revealed:
AT&T on Sunday announced the availability of more than 2,000 GoPhone devices with $15 airtime to people who were ordered to evacuate. The phones were made available on a first-come first-serve basis to residents who live in areas where mandatory evacuation was ordered.
AT&T distributed the phones through its retail locations in Houston and San Antonio, Texas, where a large number of evacuees from Louisiana and southeast Texas were staying. AT&T said it planned to make the phones available as early as Monday evening.
Chris Penrose, vice president and general manager for AT&T's wireless unit in south Texas, said this initiative will help people connect with family and friends or take care of critical needs in times of crisis.
This is what I consider to be 'a nice gesture', but with more than one eye on the PR value than actually being a good corporate citizen and now surely having got that out of the way, AT&T will tell Rajani what they have been doing to maintain service to customers!
Apparently not, as Rajani moves onto the practical efforts being made by T-Mobile inc (part of T-Mobile International AG, the mobile communications subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG) to deal with the emergency:
T-Mobile deployed an incident command team to Birmingham Command Center and locations throughout the Southeast and in Texas, to mobilize its team of engineers and technicians in case the hurricane affected networks. The company said it fortified its network switch operations that serve the Gulf Coast. Additionally, it planned to beef up its microwave radio equipment and send out Cell-on-Wheels (COWs) teams to facilitate wireless communications affected areas.
Good practical engineering and command control planning and implementation. No instant PR value, but what I would expect a reputable Telecommunication Provider to do in a Disaster Situation. Well done T-Mobile.
This good corporate citizen stuff is followed by some practical (and what I consider commonsense) advice to evacuees which I hope was made available via PBS, Public Service Advertising and handed out on the Evacuation Buses:
Service providers also requested people to adopt wise communication strategies to help them serve better during such crises. For example, instead of making voice calls to their friends or relatives, providers suggested using text messages, which use fewer network resources. Providers also asked customers to use landline phones as a backup since they do not require electricity to operate.
Finally Rajani covers what the Web (providing access is available) can do to help:
With advanced Web communication technologies such as Google Maps, weather, news, and alerts available on mobile phones, customers can utilize these resources to determine the status of weather conditions and handle emergency situations wisely. Examples of such services include AT&T’sMobiTV, AT&T Mobile TV and My-Cast Weather. Wireless data devices such as Apple’s iPhone and BlackBerry smartphones allow sending of messages to large groups of people simultaneously. However, these services are available under special subscriber plans and limited to a few subscribers.
All good practical stuff.
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