[LINK] Is the NBN Ready for Extreme Weather?

[Paul Brooks]

On 7/12/2012 8:38 AM, Tom Worthington wrote:
> On 06/12/12 15:51, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:
>
>> Should the first question not be "How do we communicate during
>> extreme weather events?" ...
> If a new communications system is being installed, it is reasonable to 
> ask if it is at least as good as the old one.
However, is it reasonable to expect the new network to be specifically designed or
customised to emergency situations/extreme weather, when the old one was not and
alternatives exist?

Its important to understand who the expected users are. Emergency Services personnel
generally use a private digital trunk-radio network dedicated to emergency services
and government agencies, designed for high availability during emergencies, and not
available to the general public and hence not subject to congestion by the public - in
NSW, this is the Government Radio Network (GRN) - see
http://www.grn.nsw.gov.au/aboutus.aspx and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Radio_Network_(Australia) for other states
networks.

This is what the current debate over ACMA and the 700MHz vs 800 MHz frequency spectrum
is all about.


>> ...  the demand is for a few channels, locally directed, dispersed
>> evenly geographically over the whole continent as well as out to sea
>>  that can operate in a range of extreme conditions. ...
> The public rarely finds themselves out at sea, on their own. Disaster is 
> more likely to strike at home, so that is where the communications are 
> needed.

Is that personal disaster, local disaster or wide scale emergency? In the original
article that spawned this thread we were talking about 'extreme weather' - have the
goal-posts been shifted?

So, with Emergency Services personnel already covered, the public fixed and mobile
networks are left for...the public. In extreme weather events (when the network itself
is not expected to be damaged) - as distinct from natural disasters, when all bets are
off - the public need to be able to call for help.

Mobile networks, being radio-based, tend to suffer from rain-fade where the radio
signal strength is attenuated in heavy rain, so may not be as useful in wet weather &
storms as they might be in hot weather. This is a fundamental law of nature, not
something that can be 'fixed'.

The fixed-line NBN in its current form should be as reliable as the current fixed
network, in the absence of a local mains power failure lasting more than 4 - 6 hours.
So - does all this boil down to 'what steps should the public consider for emergency
communications if the local mains power fails for more than 6 hours?' or are there
other issues to consider?


>
>> I'd like to see options for emergency communications, tailored to
>> local conditions before anyone tries to harden a national
>> business/entertainment communications infrastructure that is
>> probably nowhere near suitable for emergency conditions. ...
> It shows a warped set of priorities if tens of billions of dollars of
> national communications infrastructure is designed only for
> entertainment, with the protection of life an optional extra.
With hundreds of millions if not billions already spent on private dedicated GRN radio
networks for emergency services, government agencies and the protection of life,
spending some more tens of billions on a commercial publicly accessable Internet
access and general telecommunications infrastructure to support the general economy
for the masses to use doesn't seem unreasonable at all.

>
> Emergency Management Australia publish a Emergency Communications Manual
> (Manual 38) as part of the Australian emergency management handbook and
> manual series (AEMs). This has some reasonable advice, but unfortunately
> the latest edition is from 1998, well before the era of digital
> broadcasting, smart phones and the NBN:
> http://www.em.gov.au/Documents/Manual38-Communications.pdf
 Definitely time for the paper to be updated.

> Prevention/Mitigation:
>
> e. Correct siting of communication assets, ie telephone exchanges,
> mobile phone facilities, broadcast stations and major computing
> networks. ...".

Yes - don't site them in river valleys, put them high enough above the 1-in-100 year
flood levels (Brisbane, take note), site them for high availability - oddly, the same
requirements that commercial public networks also need, but (as we have seen)
occasionally don't follow.

Oddly, the biggest disruptions to telecoms services often have no cause in extreme
weather - cf the Warrnambool exchange fire
<http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/phone-lines-down-in-southwest-victoria-after-fire-at-warrnambool-telephone-exchange/story-e6frf7kx-1226521710103>
recently, the cable cuts that isolated much of Queensland
<http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/australia/queensland-outage-one-in-a-million-event-optus-1256.html>
and Hunter Valley
<http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-20/hunter-phones-go-down-after-fibre-cut/3900548>,
the cockatoo-event in NT
<http://www.itnews.com.au/News/254265,cockatoos-suspected-of-breaking-telstra-fibre.aspx>,
and the rodent-event that separated New Zealand
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4114556.stm>

Paul.