|
 As the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season draws to a close, Mike Bemis takes a look at the communications lessons that have been learned from the impact of this year’s hurricanes.
I received an e-mail from a business associate recently, relating his personal experience of trying to reach business contacts in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. There were pressing decisions to make regarding future business plans. At first, he had not expected anyone to be answering ‘phones… but it took ten days before he was able to speak with anyone. He was understanding of the reasons, but he lost ten important business days. This situation was replicated across the area; nearly all of the businesses in the region lost their incoming call capability. I am certainly not wishing to minimize the pain and suffering of the people of New Orleans, but if business continuity means anything, business must continue, no matter what. The necessary communications continuity technologies and services are there, but many more businesses need to start taking the issue seriously.
What worked for businesses and what didn’t…
- Cells took a beating during the storms. Towers blew down and remained out of service during the early days of recovery efforts. Those that weren’t blown down, were rendered useless by power loss. In many instances, back-up generators were inoperable or submerged. Service providers made extreme efforts and were ultimately able to place portable towers and supplies throughout many affected regions.
- SMS Text messaging solutions seemed to work pretty well. They require little bandwidth and tend to queue up when conditions dictate allowing for message delivery later.
- Satellite phone systems operated reliably and well through a significant number of the hurricane emergencies this year. One provider we spoke with recently can’t keep inventory on the shelves in the wake of the hurricane season.
- IP Technology held up well at hubs but fell down in the field due to equipment and cable submersions and power loss. On-going contamination is still causing short circuits and loss of service at many locations.
- Some of the companies my company spoke with had placed re-direct services in place in advance of this year’s disasters. While many of these businesses completely lost their facilities or access to their facilities, they felt they were able to do a reasonable job of fielding their inbound calls with the personnel and systems that were available in the wake of the hurricanes.
- If solutions relied on wires to work, they probably didn’t. If it requires electricity, sooner or later you’re going to need some more of it. Re-direction services allowed for the interception of some inbound calls with the services that remained intact. More sophisticated re-direction allowed for ‘hunting’ through the remaining available resources and more successful call delivery.
 Mike Bemis, Voice Continuity Services
mike bemis@earthlink.net
http://www.voiceserv.net
•Date: 18th Nov 2005 •Region: US •Type:
Article •Topic: Telecoms continuity
Rate
this article or make a comment - click
here |
