Telecommunications Resilience: The ‘Last Mile’ is the Weakest Link
It is widely recognised that the UK PSTN (Public Switched Telephony Network) infrastructure is one of the most reliable infrastructures in the world with examples of services being quoted as having ‘five 9s availability’: i.e.99.999% availability equating to some 5 minutes downtime across the whole network over a twelve month period.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the connectivity, the telephone circuits, installed by the various Tier I Providers between their respective Local Exchanges.
This infrastructure is located on the periphery of the PSTN and the end-user customer’s premises: commonly referred to as ‘the last mile’. Why is this a weak link in the system? Because the Tier I Providers simply cannot be held responsible for the integrity of these circuits. They invariably run in 5cm diameter pvc ducts and are usually located only some 15cm beneath the pavement surface where they are very susceptible to damage caused during road works and/or by heavy vehicles driving over badly consolidated excavations.
The ‘last mile’ needs very careful thought for business continuity plans.
See Telecommunications Resilience in the UK: The ‘Last Mile’ is the Weakest Link by Graham Chick, at Continuity Central.
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Addressing the vulnerabilities in today’s critical infrastructure to natural disasters and terrorism, this new book by Leo Wrobel and Sharon Wrobel describes what professionals should be doing to protect their infrastructure before the unthinkable happens.
Readers learn how to maintain command and control in any disaster, and how to predict the probability of those disasters. Written by two highly regarded experts in the field, this one-of-a-kind book shows how to simplify risk assessments and emergency response procedures to disasters affecting our critical national and local infrastructure.
This practical resource helps professionals…
- Understand the latest technologies that help assure word gets out quickly after an act of terrorism, a severe weather occurrence, or other destructive event occurs;
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- Learn the basics of what a good emergency response plan should contain for critical infrastructure providers;
- Create step-by-step plans and templates for assessing vulnerability in hospitals, government agencies, police and fire departments, EMT centers, water supplies, power grids, telecommunication networks, large business enterprises, and more;
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- Discover ways to have seismic, weather and other alerts delivered to a telephone, wireless phone, blackberry or email, taking advantage of online access to the Pacific Disaster Center repository.
Hardcover. 330 pp., May, 2009.
