Communications For Disaster Recovery

One of the most crucial aspects of any disaster recovery plan has to be communications.  Without a reliable communications strategy in place all of the disaster recovery planning and efforts are seriously hampered.

To ensure that you have adequate and reliable communications you should consider various options and have at least two forms available.

First most companies use what is known as a PRI which is their primary form of communicating.  This is a business grade telephone line and can carry several phone calls simultaneously.  In larger companies the would have several PRI's in place just to handle the call volume.   The PRI is a digital circuit and requires the proper equipment to use it which is very common place in many businesses.   

In some aspects that alone can be part of a DR plan.  One of the big down falls of a PRI is that regardless of who your provider is the last mile generally is your local phone company.  This connection will originate at a location in or near your town known as the central office or CO.  Even if you have multiple PRI's chances are that they will all originate from the same CO.

What if the PRI goes down altogether or the CO is rendered inoperable, now what?  A lot of places still use fax machines and most likely those are on what is known as POTs lines.  These are separate from a PRI.  Unlike the PRI the POTs line is old fashioned analog.  A lot of fax machines also have handsets so in an emergency you can use that for communication.  But these too can originate from the same CO.

One company I know of had their PRI fail when someone in the CO accidentally disconnected the service.  They where down for three days while the phone company worked on the problem but still had the fax machines to call out on.  Management did not like that idea so they relied on the next option.

Everywhere we go we see people on cell phones.  These can and should be a part of your DRP.  Although they are pretty reliable these too have drawbacks.

Cell phones are
 very popular

Not considering usage limits from one plan to another, cell phones do have a limited range and the area you are in might have sketchy to no coverage.  As an example in my own town in most of it I get great cell coverage but in another section the coverage is poor at best.

Should a cell tower go down as what happened in many areas of Long Island and in New Jersey due to a lack of power from hurricane Sandy in 2012, the cell phone is useless.

That storm not only took out cell coverage but many land-line phones where affected as well when trees fell on wires.   Even if you did get cell coverage your call still might get through because of this depending if the destination still had land line coverage.

Another form of communication you can add to your DRP are satellite phones.  These are still costly but not

A satellite phone
should be considered

too far out of reach and can make an ideal addition.  Unlike PRI's fax lines and cell phones these do not rely on traditional systems at least on one end of the communications side.  A very big plus for these for the most part is that the range is almost unlimited with the exception below.

Aside from the cost one of the drawbacks with satellite phones is if a satellite is not in optimum position you might not get reliable communications for a short period of time until a satellite appears over the horizon.  This is slowly being rectified as more satellites are being put into orbit.

When you call out on a satellite phone, the signal is picked up by an orbiting satellite, then bounced to a receiving station then it goes over traditional land lines to the destination.  Here lies the second issue, what if the destination so happens to be in the same area where the disaster is located and has been affected by it as well?

Another form of DR communications you might want to look into is actually very old and predates the internet, cell and satellite phones.  That is amateur or HAM radio.

A HAM radio can be daunting

First thing that probably pops into you head when you hear HAM radio is a room filled with complex radios, oscilloscopes, someone using a Morse code key and head phones.  In some extreme aspects this is not far from the truth but that really holds true for someone who is very advanced into the hobby.  But let the truth be known you can obtain a HAM radio that is a walkie talkie and get great coverage.

HAM radio does require that you obtain a license from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and that can deter someone from going forward.  One of the things that can scare people off is knowing morse code.  A few short years ago you were required to know morse code at a set speed.  That no longer is a requirement in most of the levels of license. 

What you do need to know is some radio and electronic theory which is

A HAM radio can be as
simple as a walkie-talkie

not too hard to master.  The ARRL holds classes for the public so you should look into them as a resource.  I took an on-line self assessment test in how I would fair in taking the test and I got an 80 without picking up a book.  In all fairness being involved in computers on the technical level did give me an advantage. 

At least with a HAM radio available you have the ability to reach out to another HAM radio for assistance.  Some hospitals and police departments are using HAM radio as back up communications but check in your area to see if they do have HAM radio.

One thing that needs to be pointed out that what ever you say on the radio can be listened to by other people so discretion in what you say is strongly advised.

One thing that you might have thought of is right under your nose, but it does require caution in how you use it and that is social media.  Social media can be used for internal communications with your staff provided you take precautions to make sure that only they can see it.  I will address that in my next article.

These are just some of the options that you can use in a disaster and should be added to your arsenal of tools.

(c)2014 William Lewis