BROADBAND FOR IMPLEMENTATION OF NATIONAL EMERGENCY TELECOMMUNICATIONS PLANS

Transcription

1 BROADBAND FOR IMPLEMENTATION OF NATIONAL EMERGENCY TELECOMMUNICATIONS PLANS Donnie Defreitas Project Director

2 A BACKGROUND Dr. Bob Horton Consultant to the Global VSAT Forum noted recently that there are ten key ICT factors vital to success of the Blue Continent : 1. Power 2. ICT infrastructure and access 3. Digital literacy 4. Affordability of ICT esp. Internet 5. Regional growth and development 6. A safe and secure ICT society 7. Job creation, new industries, outreach 8. Coping with disasters 9. e-applications, e-government and 10. A comprehensive regulatory template self determined

3 INTRODUCTION Let us for a moment focus on coping with disasters. Denial of climate change does not affect the impact of ever increasing disasters that affect everyone Pacific Island Countries (PIC) rank amongst the most vulnerable to natural disasters due to rising sea levels and increasing severe weather patterns as a result of climate change. Governments role in collaboration with all stakeholders is managing the effects of natural disaster on their communities. This includes both preparing their communities for natural disasters and helping them recover from these disasters. In the Pacific, there is a lack of coordination and communication policies, plans, tools to provide solutions for preparedness, response and recovery. The development of a National Emergency Telecommunications Plan will help in establishing baselines for an effective approach to disaster management. The availability of affordable broadband services will enable the development of effective NETPs

4 THE ROLE OF THE NETP The National Emergency Telecommunications Plan has three (3) basic functions 1. Alert the population before, during and after the disaster 2. Convey information necessary for important decisionmaking during all the phases and 3. The coordination during the interventions between the different actors

5 PHASES IN DISASTER MITIGATION AND MANAGEMENT

6 FOUR PHASES OF DISASTER MANAGEMENT AND MITIGATION 1. Preparation: Helping people to understand the need to prepare for disasters 2. Alerting: Alerting people to impending disasters 3. Response: Helping people & agencies to respond to a disaster 4. Recovery: Helping people recover after a disaster Affordable and accessible broadband can help with all four of these phases.

7 The Phased response Typically the NETP would envision a scenario where terrestrial communications are disabled and this would obviously hamper the ability of support teams to communicate effectively with each other or the outside world and provide a fully coordinated response. In such an event satellite broadband can provide the rapid two-way communications required with scaled solutions depending on the extent of the damage Satellites can provide emergency support along with mobile broadband technologies, where the normal infrastructure cannot cope due to system overload. will be required at each of the four main phases of a disaster, in ensuring continuity of operations at every stage. The initial response could use satellite broadband systems to provide a degree of mobility with relatively quick on-site installation resulting with secure, easy-to-deploy and costeffective bandwidth.

8 SYSTEM DISRUPTION AND RESILIENCE Communications plays a critical role in all of the phases of disaster management and mitigation and is central to a well designed NETP. We need to: Minimize disruption to communication systems and ensure that emergency services are able to restore normality to businesses and individuals alike. Provide maximum resilience to communications systems, both at the technical level and to the systems (people and processes). Level 4, Japan-Pacific ICT Centre University of South Pacific, Laucala Campus System Suva, Fiji

9 Diversity and Interoperability It is critical in the NETP that the identification of those communications activities central to the response arrangements are in place. Equally important is that they exist with a level of diversity to withstand multiple breaks in the system Interoperability is another key aspect of the NETP

10 THE INVENTORY OF EXISTING BROADBAND CAPABILITIES Critical in the development of the NETP is the need to an inventory of the country s broadband capabilities This is to facilitate an understanding of potential and critical failure points are in the event of a disaster This planning needs to be done in a non-disaster situation. This would ensure that when disaster strikes, the countries know what their remaining capabilities are and what they can do with what they have until help comes

11 Potential applications for broadband in NETPs Having identified the critical role of communications in disaster management at a conference dedicated to Broadband we should consider a nation-wide broadband communications network to be used for disaster preparedness, mitigation and response. This would need discussion of the issues of modern emergency management: public-private partnerships, whole community response and encouraging information sharing and interoperability.

12 Conclusions Communications are central to everyday life as we know it Broadband applications allow for the maintenance of this lifestyle and provides opportunities for its improvement Well functioning NETPs are a requirement for business continuity and restoration of normal activities in the event of a disaster Communications and broadband are essential for an NETP that responds to a country s requirements

13 Recommendations Countries need to have in place a NETP developed with all of the stakeholders involved NETPs need to take advantage of the possibilities offered by broadband services and applications to ensure communications systems are robust, resilient and interoperable The development of a national broadband network that addresses all of the phases of disaster management and mitigation should be made a priority Ensure that a complete inventory of ICT resources including broadband capabilities is done in preparation of any disaster

14 Finally.. PIRRC is working with its Participating Countries to develop National Emergency Telecommunication Plans We are willing to share the results of this work with all interested and we can be contacted at or

15 THANK YOU