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Business Continuity Plans
As Katrina recovery efforts continued into 2006, wireless carriers started planning and preparing for the next disaster. An integral part of that process is a voluntary Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery Program designed by CTIA, which certifies that carriers are compliant with a 10-point checklist of best practices that encompasses areas such as risk evaluation, emergency response and operations, and coordination with external organizations. “Wireless carriers have been well-prepared for crises in the past,” says Chris Guttman-McCabe, CTIA Vice-President, Regulatory Affairs, “but no one could have predicted Katrina's devastation. As an industry we're in an even better position to respond now, because we have the combined experiences of Katrina and the critically important operational measures in our certification program that all of the major carriers have in place today.”
Regional carriers also learned their lessons well. “Unicel has added or enhanced 16 cell sites along a significant section of U.S. Highway 431 in Alabama, a common evacuation route for those heading away from the Gulf Coast,” says Miriam Svobodny, the company’s Public Relations Manager. “We have added nine cell sites on U.S. 431 north of Auburn and on U.S. 280 towards Birmingham.”
To ensure cell sites keep running, companies have added more permanent generators to more cell sites, stockpiled more portable generators and developed plans for bringing in sufficient fuel for them.
They have also constructed new, redundant networks. “The biggest lesson learned from that site is that you don’t want to rely on any vendor or any one method to provide you with your key activities,” says Leutenegger. “We’re actually running both microwave and landline to a lot of our cell sites so that we have different paths in there.”
“Cellular South is in the middle of putting a very large, high capacity microwave ring around the entire Gulf Coast to help offset the problems with the landlines when they go down,” says Kent. It’s also added a $2.5 million switch in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, so it can handle increased capacity in the event of another disaster.
Adding other resources
“When a disaster gets as large as Katrina did, you really can’t count on anyone else for anything,” says Leutenegger. FEMA promised escorts that never materialized; vendors weren’t able to deliver promised equipment. “Listen to them, but also start your alternate plans right away,” he advises. “I’ve got microwave equipment available to me now, ready to be deployed faster. I’ve got fuel trucks that I’ve got ready and waiting. I’ve got contacts with big generator companies in case I have any failures there. So I’m just going to be my own power company, my own telephone company, for as long as I need.”
Since Katrina, Cingular has developed an entire set of resources that it can deploy at the time of a disaster, built around two Atlanta-based mobile access command centers. Mach 1 and Mach 2 are equipped with generators, a satellite dish for constant communications, LAN connectivity, and a PBX phone system. Backup trailers hold everything needed for cleanup from chainsaws and crowbars to garbage and shovels. “We also have a medical RV and will have a nurse staffing it 24/7 in our recovery compound.”
The company now has two 40-man tents (air conditioned and lighted) with kitchen, bathroom, shower and laundry facilities. It has a mobile sales office—a MOUSE—that is basically a store in an RV. It has its own service for providing fuel and water to the recovery compound. “All of that rolls out with us,” says Brown. “We also have a specialized team, experts in emergency response, who will deploy to any event that we have.
