Rapidly recovering from the catastrophic loss of a major telecommunications office

Abstract

Ready access to communications networks has become a necessity for nearly every type of organization (business, non-profit, government) and for individual users. If a catastrophic disaster destroyed a city's central network office, telecommunications users in that region would lose their network connectivity - data, voice, cellular - until the office's capabilities could be restored. That isolation could put lives and livelihoods at risk as an affected city tried to respond to a large natural or man-made disaster. AT&T has a mature network emergency management and business continuity program that plans for and responds to events that affect the AT&T network and its support systems around the globe. Within that NEM plan, the AT&T Network Disaster Recovery team is responsible for the restoration of a failed network office's services. This article will describe NDR's mobile response process and how it fits within AT&T's overall response to a disaster.