Emergency Preparedness/Business Continuity  

CTIA Position:
CTIA-The Wireless Association® and the wireless industry acknowledge the importance of business continuity/disaster recovery planning and implementation of such measures.

Wireless companies are constantly evaluating, analyzing, and refining their response plans, and through recent experiences, such as Hurricane Ike, the wireless community has learned even more about emergency preparedness. The industry applies that knowledge in its efforts to retool and shape plans for future emergencies.

By focusing on the future, making necessary changes, and remaining flexible in the face of complicated situations, disaster recovery and the restoration of wireless services in affected areas can occur even faster and more efficiently.

CTIA and the industry launched a voluntary Wireless AMBER Alert Service in partnership with the Department of Justice and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to helps protect our Nation’s children. 

CTIA and the wireless industry also support a comprehensive public alert and warning system that ultimately can be transmitted on multiple retransmission media, including wireless. CTIA and its members participated in the WARN Act process to facilitate the delivery of wireless emergency alerts. During the Fall of 2008, wireless carriers covering nearly 97% of wireless subscribers signaled their intention to offer commercial mobile alerts.  

Key Points:

• Wireless carriers have undertaken extensive voluntary efforts to protect their communications networks.
  They have identified the most important links in their networks for the support of critical communications and currently protect them not only with adequate power but by, for example, “hardening” them from wind or pre-positioning additional equipment. Wireless providers also presently employ effective solutions to power outages that do not require the installation of permanent power sources, such as mobile cell sites on wheels, cell sites on light trucks, and satellite cell sites on light trucks.
• Carriers design emergency plans to fit the particular emergency and unique risks in different parts of the country.