In disaster situations, we all look to the crews on the road to get us back on our feet. But sometimes physical roadblocks aren’t the only things preventing them from repairing the communications infrastructure.
It turns out the federal government has as much a vested interest in keeping things up and running as the cable customers do themselves. And, SCTE Cable-Tec Expo attendees learned Thursday, there’s a lot the government does behind the scenes to help ensure the path to recovery is as smooth for operators as possible.
According to John O’Connor, Director of the Department of Homeland Security’s National Coordinating Center for Communications, the government knows it’s dependent on the communications infrastructure tended by cable operators. That’s part of the reason, he said, federal authorities have developed a complex network of agencies and partners to push for the operators’ interests in disaster recovery scenarios.
“There is no cyber without the fiber, meaning those ones and zeros can’t go anywhere unless we have that infrastructure in place to support it,” O’Connor said. “The NCC is a partnership. So we realize we depend on the infrastructure you guys put forward … but we also want to help because we know it’s in the best interest of the government, first responders and the public at large to have that partnership.”
When disaster recovery efforts are under way, O’Connor said the NCC is on hand to remind decision-makers of the importance of restoring communications in addition to things like transportation and power. For instance, O’Connor explained, the NCC nudged local governments in the wake of Hurricane Sandy to allow communications crews from the cable operators the same travel and fuel access as the first responders and power crews.
“At times people forget and they assume, because that’s the classic memory, cable is providing HBO and ESPN to me,” O’Connor said. “We’re the ones on the government side that say ‘Yeah, they’ve got that, but they’re also providing phone services. The phone services are for 911, so you need to consider that. They’re also doing the backhaul, so while everyone’s enamored with the wireless industry and mobile and what that cell phone or device in your pocket can do, it doesn’t work without the backhaul.’”
“We’re there to help educate…to make sure that if there’s a curfew that you guys can get past it, if there’s a blockade you guys can get past that because we want the folks when they repopulate an evacuated area to be able to call 911,” he continued.
While O’Connor said much of the work goes on in meetings and on the phone in the background, he noted the NCC also provides some tools for workers in the field in the form of Access and Debris Removal letters. The former can be handed to authorities on the scene to help crews get past blockades, while the latter reminds cleanup crews to be careful of infrastructure on the ground to prevent further damage, he said. Rather than overriding local authorities’ power, O’Connor said the letters merely serve to corroborate the story the operator crews are telling.
The NCC also has a voluntary disaster reporting system that allows partners to input information about the status of their systems and locations that can then be overlaid with other community information, like the location of hospitals and evacuation centers. This reporting, he said, can help coordinators adjust their response strategy to prioritize restoration efforts.
O’Connor said the NCC is a voluntary partnership of industry players that currently includes 63 members. But the group, he said, is always looking to grow.
