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Who you gonna call? by people displaced by the disaster. In the Christchurch,
New Zealand earthquake the same year, networks were
initially overwhelmed but returned to normal the first day.
Telecommunications There are also more options for communicating in today’s

in Disasters telecommunications environment, primarily due to cellular
phones and the internet. Texting, for example, can be
effective when networks are overwhelmed in disasters
undamental to our daily lives, telecommunications because it uses less bandwidth than voice calls and, unlike By Jeff Hortobagyi, CBCP, MBCI
is critical when disasters strike. While voice calls, a text keeps trying if it doesn’t get through.
telecommunications has performed relatively well (Texting was effective in both Christchurch and Japan,
Fin disasters, particularly in the recent past, it has though messages were delayed at times.) Social media
vulnerabilities and, in some cases, has been substantially works in a similar way, and can be used to communicate
impacted in disasters. broadly, becoming a valuable source of information in
disasters—as well as opening new opportunities to take
This article discusses the impact of disasters
on telecommunications and the resilience of advantage of people in need.
telecommunication networks. It highlights three The rapidly changing technologies of telecommunications
main areas of impact: network overload, damage to should improve network capacity and management. That’s
telecommunications infrastructure, and damage to not to say that network overload can be eliminated.
supporting infrastructure.1 It also looks briefly at Telecommunications networks aren’t built for mass calling
telecommunications vulnerabilities and the future of events; it’s cost-prohibitive. Moreover, new threats have
telecommunications resilience. emerged, such as cyber attacks—by criminals, terrorists,
Network overload bad state actors—that can overwhelm or disable
Network overload has historically been most significant telecommunications networks.
in the initial hours and days after a disaster when high Damage to telecommunications
volumes of people are trying to make calls to check on infrastructure
loved ones or to figure out what’s going on. In the hours In the past, telecommunications infrastructure was
after the 1994 Northbridge earthquake, for example, Los considerably more vulnerable to physical damage. It used
Angeles was described as being cut off from the rest of the a branching structure where damage to a single element
world (Townsend and Moss 2005). Similarly, in the Kobe, could disconnect entire neighbourhoods (Townsend and
Japan a year later, there were substantial difficulties making Moss 2005). It also lacked the redundancy of modern
calls for five days. According to a 2005 study by Anthony networks.
M. Townsend and Mitchell L. Moss of New York University,
“the earthquakes in Mexico City (1985), San Francisco Innovations in telecommunications have significantly
(1989), Los Angeles (1994), and Kobe (1995) did not so improved network resilience. Modern routing techniques,
much destroy telecom networks as congest them into for example, allow damaged portions of the network to
uselessness.” be bypassed. Network build and technological advances
have also increased redundancy and densified networks,
Advances in telecommunications technology and network allowing them to better accommodate outages. The
management have increased network capacity and use of technologies like optic fiber make infrastructure
reduced overload. Telecom providers have better tools to more resilient to environmental factors, and the
manage networks, such as ongoing digitization of
restricting calls to protect telecommunications
the network, prioritizing networks has promise to
calls (e.g., emergency calls), Texting can be effective when networks are increase resilience and
and rationing bandwidth overwhelmed in disasters because it uses less provide more tools to
to protect voice and text bandwidth than voice calls and, unlike voice calls, a manage disruptions.
communications. In the text keeps trying if it doesn’t get through.
devastating 2011 Great East Telecommunications
Japan Earthquake, restrictions resilience was demonstrated
were put on calls to manage in NATO’s 1999 bombing
overload, but the network of Belgrade, Serbia targeting communications facilities.
returned to normal more quickly than in the past. Landline Serbian internet service providers were able to maintain
restrictions were removed after the first day; wireless communications using a more decentralized approach—
restrictions continued intermittently for several days, as satellite links, cellular networks, and amateur radio
wireless networks would have had extremely heavy usage (Townsend and Moss 2005). Disrupting communications

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