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Stretching comms to the limit in the wake of a natural disaster - Telefonica

Minimizing human loss and damage to homes and infrastructure, time is critical time for essential emergency workers and affected people to communicate with each other.

The effects of a brutal storm that hit the eastern Spanish peninsula in late October were felt beyond the affected areas. Videos shared on social media and calls to television and radio programs showed the magnitude of the rain and flooding in Valencia, Albacete, and other towns in the area.

common issues in a crisis including communications priority

Many of these testimonies had several things in common: I can’t find another person, they don’t pick up the phone at emergency services, I don’t know how much battery I have left or if I’ll be able to call again

people depended on the communication systems continuing to function reliably as well as they do in normal circumstances.

Significant Telecommunications infrastructure damage

But the severity of the floods, combined with strong winds and isolated tornadoes, further complicated the situation. “This led to significant damage to telecom infrastructure,” says Rubén Nicolás-Sans, vice-dean of science and technology at UNIE University, “particularly where the water covered cables and stations, causing interruptions in both mobile and landline telephony.” Added to this were power outages that turned off routers and left devices unable to recharge their batteries. “It interrupted essential services, including data centers that support digital communications, limiting the ability to communicate between citizens and emergency services, especially in the first hours of the crisis,” he adds.  

Telephone and cable recovery was slow 

Trying to restore service as soon as possible wasn’t easy. The roads were difficult to navigate, when they could be used at all, and in those first hours, no one knew what the technical teams would find. This was the situation faced by internet service provider Fibra Valencia, which works in the most affected areas. CEO Antonio Costa says the alarms in its data centres went off the night the floods started, and they tried to move a team there, but when they arrived, they found the water was already too high and they had to leave. The next day, they began working and found the damage extended to the fiber. But after about 10 hours, one team raised the entire data center, and another team managed to pass the fiber over a damaged bridge.

less than 48 hours to get first few sites back online

within 48 hours, service was restored to the town hall and health centre. Coverage was also provided to temporary huts on the street for the Civil Protection, Red Cross, and other teams, and WiFi connection points were set up for citizens. A full recovery will be another thing, Martínez adds, which depends on repair to roads and other infrastructure.  

the team setup a war room 

they established a war room. “We went into crisis mode,” she says. The operations teams met to work in a coordinated manner and contacted the company that helps with incident management on the ground, and mobilized to try to reinforce teams, even with people from neighboring areas.  

telecom infrastructure was easily damaged

“The main problem we faced as a mobile team was physically getting to the sites where equipment had to be changed,” says Velasco. “Transport infrastructures were most damaged because the fiber is usually deployed close to civil infrastructures like roads, bridges, and high voltage towers.” The force of the floods broke part of the pipelines where the fiber was, and detecting all the cuts was a very costly and laborious task. 

damage escalated rapidly on the first day

they decided to activate their incident management protocol. “First, more distant or dispersed sites fell and then we began to notice that large power plants fell as well,” says Manuel Muñoz, their director of operations. “That’s when you could already see the impact, which on the night of the first day was already a lot.”

moved satellite units to allow communications

triaging the most affected infrastructures. “There were isolated villages with all its antennas down,” he says. Here the priority was to put at least one back in place, so some service could be guaranteed. “In some places it was quite complex, so we also moved satellite units to allow us, or at least the security forces, to have communication,” he adds.  

communications recovered eventually 

“In the end, the priority was for the mobile telephony part to work, because it was distressing to be totally cut off from communication,” he says.  

At first, work was done to guarantee service to emergency teams, followed by service to citizens. 

MasOrange was able to eventually recover more than 98% of service, and they continue to install new fiber optic cables and erect portable mobile stations.

Lessons Learned

Need solid contingency plans in place that include both mobile and satellite emergency communication systems,

Nicolás-Sans says there must be more exhaustive prior planning and rapid responses required. “It’s crucial that solid contingency plans are in place that include both mobile and satellite emergency communication systems,” he says, in addition to repair and restoration protocols for critical infrastructures like telecom networks and data centers. He also points out infrastructure redundancy. “Operators must invest in more resilient networks, such as underground systems or flood protection solutions,” he says. “And the use of backup technologies, including power generators and protection systems for telecommunications equipment, is essential.”

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