Most mobile towers are unsafe in Nepal, a study by ERRRP/UNDP suggests.
Most of the mobile towers in the Kathmandu Valley remain unsafe from natural disasters like earthquakes, a study conducted by the Earthquake Risk Reduction and Recovery Preparedness Program (ERRRPP) for Nepal, in support by the UNDP, has revealed.
The 88-page study report says that out of 13 mobile towers set up on buildings, nine were found to be unsafe under earthquake loads. Nepal's telecom service providers have set up more than 550 mobile towers in capital Kathmandu Valley and 3,000 altogether in the country in their bid to expand services.
> Study Report in PDF: The Vulnerability of Mobile Telecommunications to Natural Hazards
Most of the mobile towers in the Kathmandu Valley remain unsafe from natural disasters like earthquakes, a study conducted by the Earthquake Risk Reduction and Recovery Preparedness Program (ERRRPP) for Nepal, in support by the UNDP, has revealed.
The 88-page study report says that out of 13 mobile towers set up on buildings, nine were found to be unsafe under earthquake loads. Nepal's telecom service providers have set up more than 550 mobile towers in capital Kathmandu Valley and 3,000 altogether in the country in their bid to expand services.
The executive summary of the report follows, with a link to the original study report at the end:
Executive Summary
The federal government has assigned high priority to Canada becoming one of the most "connected" telecommunications countries in the world. Canada's advantages as a potential world leader in telecommunications, including mobile, Internet, and wireline services, are clearly evident. For example, we have excellent fibre optic trunked wireline services throughout the country, state-of-the-art and competitive cellular services with coverage in populated areas, and wide-area Public Safety and Public Service telecommunications networks in most provinces.
These latter networks are critical to Canada's response to and recovery from natural disasters.
The federal government has assigned high priority to Canada becoming one of the most "connected" telecommunications countries in the world. Canada's advantages as a potential world leader in telecommunications, including mobile, Internet, and wireline services, are clearly evident. For example, we have excellent fibre optic trunked wireline services throughout the country, state-of-the-art and competitive cellular services with coverage in populated areas, and wide-area Public Safety and Public Service telecommunications networks in most provinces.
These latter networks are critical to Canada's response to and recovery from natural disasters.
Unfortunately, while the responsibility for implementing Public Safety telecommunications networks typically resides with local governments, as does the initial responsibility for responding to natural disasters, the capabilities and standards of existing Public Safety systems vary widely across the country. Lack of adequate funding at the municipal, regional, and, occasionally, at the provincial level, often hinders the efforts to offer a grade of service on the Public Safety telecommunications networks that meets Public Safety standards.
In smaller municipalities, in particular, aging local telecommunications infrastructures serve Public Safety and Public Service organizations. These infrastructures are becoming increasingly difficult to maintain as they do not provide interoperability between agencies, and they lack redundancy for essential elements. This makes them susceptible to failure under adverse or extreme conditions such as occur in natural disasters.
This report examines the potential vulnerability of the mobile telecommunications infrastructure in Canada to natural hazards, and identifies a number of concerns relevant to emergency preparedness and management. It provides an overview of the general principles of mobile network design and includes information on both private and public mobile radio networks. The report also identifies the components of the telecommunications infrastructure and their potential vulnerability to natural hazards, thereby allowing emergency managers to reasonably assess the
vulnerability of their local surroundings.
vulnerability of their local surroundings.
Central to the report is the examination of the various types of mobile radio systems on a province-by-province basis, with emphasis on natural hazards specific to each province and their potential effect on the existing mobile telecommunications networks. The report is supported by two case studies - one highlighting a network from the West Coast, the other a network from the East Coast - which show how natural hazards and their potential impacts differ across the country. The case studies examine a regional versus provincial approach to providing mobile communications networks to Public Safety and Public Service agencies and provide a methodology for prioritizing the mitigation of these networks' vulnerability to natural hazards.
Fortunately, Canada has experienced relatively few natural disasters compared, for example, to the United States. Although our incidence rate is relatively low, history and scientific research show that Canada will not only continue to face the threat of natural disasters but that the devastation - including loss of assets and life - from some of these events in the future could be far greater than we have experienced in the past. And as Canada becomes even more urbanized, we face the potential for even greater losses because of the greater concentration of people and assets, including telecommunications, in urban centres.
Adequate, interoperable, and coordinated telecommunications systems are critical to the response to and recovery from the impact of natural disasters. Canada has recently made strides to build provincial Public Service wide-area networks that, with some enhancements, can support Public Safety agencies, thereby at least providing interoperability between Public Safety agencies and Public Service departments. In many jurisdictions, the lack of interoperability between Public Safety networks deployed in the same geographical area also makes mobile communications systems vulnerable to all types of hazards.
Some of this report's findings with regard to the vulnerability of mobile telecommunications to natural hazards were expected; however, others were surprising and could lead to new perceptions of the vulnerabilities of Canada's mobile radio systems. Presented below are some of the report's major findings.
• Mobile wireless communications are essential to any coordinated effort to minimize loss of life in emergencies, and for general emergency management.
• Public Safety and Public Service mobile communications networks vary widely in terms of size, funding, and technical standards.
• The vulnerability of Public Safety and Public Service systems to natural hazards has a low priority with virtually all of the municipal systems consulted in this study.
• Public cellular and PCS mobile networks are efficient under normal circumstances, but are vulnerable to uncontrollable overloading in emergencies and disasters.
• In the past, public telecommunications networks (cellular, PCS) have experienced overloading in heavily populated areas immediately following a disaster. However, their availability to first responders in emergencies that last for an extended period has been useful in recovery from natural disasters where a large number of landlines were out of
service.
service.
The mobile communications sector is constantly evolving. At the time this report was drafted (February 2002), local/provincial governments and public safety agencies were working toward improving their capabilities to respond to major emergencies. But more work remains to be done if emergency planners are to mitigate the potential vulnerability of mobile telecommunications to natural disasters. This report therefore recommends the following:
• Municipalities should be encouraged to upgrade their mobile radio networks to shared systems and, where the size of the system is appropriate, to strongly consider trunked architecture. If practical, their legacy systems should serve as a back-up. Training and simulations of natural hazards would help identify vulnerabilities in the current systems.
The training already in place at the provincial and regional levels should continue.
• Continued effort should be made to quantify the impact of natural disasters on mobile radio systems (particularly on Public Safety and Public Service systems) and to examine
the lack of priority that municipal and other Public Safety networks assign to disruption caused by natural hazards
the lack of priority that municipal and other Public Safety networks assign to disruption caused by natural hazards
> Study Report in PDF: The Vulnerability of Mobile Telecommunications to Natural Hazards
> Homepage of Earthquake Risk Reduction and Recovery Preparedness Program (ERRRPP) for Nepal.
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