Disaster Planning is Still a Bit Shaky
With this week’s magnitude-5.4 earthquake in Southern California behind us, experts are saying that the worst is yet to come. Sufficiently shaken – no pun intended – everyone is making a move to step up their emergency preparations. But what about the telecommunications companies whose services are so crucial to people during emergencies?
Telephone service was disrupted in the wake of Tuesday’s quake, but not because of equipment damage. Instead, the problem was that too many people were trying to make calls, a problem that carriers call “network congestion.” Sprint had an 800% spike in calls. Verizon reported a 400% spike. Phone lines were so disrupted, in fact, that the California Office of Emergency Services asked people not to make phone calls to ensure emergency calls could be made to 911.
No doubt these carriers had disaster plans, but the actual demand far exceeded their expectations of the need. For carriers to effectively handle the influx of calls that come with a disaster, proper planning is needed. Beyond simple network diversity and resiliency planning, and even beyond preparing to handle occasional influxes of calls - like at midnight on New Year’s Eve each year- carriers must evaluate, plan and prepare for worst case scenarios in traffic spikes. Did they learn nothing after Hurricane Katrina and the Sept. 11 tragedies jammed up their networks? Hopefully, one very important call will be made now - a wakeup call to carriers that it’s time to start planning.
