The Hindu Business Line : `Private wireless networks best in times of disasters'

The way out is to have a private wireless telecom network available for use only by the local administration, security, the police, ambulance service, hospitals, road transport authority, air traffic control, railways and important persons/organisations having a say in the disaster management.

Speaking to Business Line, Mr P.A. Paul, former Vice-President, Siemens Public Communication Networks Ltd, said that public telecom networks are optimised to handle communication needs of a routine nature only.

It is next to impossible to design a public network capable of handling the sudden spurt of traffic at times of major disasters. Some countries use a high security GSM network, privately and exclusively owned by the Government, in such cases. This could be tried out in India as well.

By design, these are non-blocking, `full availability' systems ensuring congestion-free service at the switching centre level as well as at the access network levels. Interconnects to public networks are optional but should be enabled to filter out or block calls to avoid being swamped by traffic from other networks.

This arrangement will help keep up communication between vital points - to receive information as well as pass on orders from the central control to various points. Especially in cases of bomb and cyclone scare, floods, fire, earthquake, mob violence or major traffic hold-ups.

It will be possible to access the suburban railway and road transport communications systems from this network to pass and flash orders of urgent nature. Railway compartments featuring bomb scare alarms and a public address system would, for instance, complete the picture.

A network having an entire city and suburbs under its footprint would be an expensive proposition. Sharing of towers owned by public telecom service providers phone is one way to get around this problem.

The network could also be deployed to provide value added services such as pre-paid car parking using an intelligent network server to generate additional revenue. It is estimated that in Mumbai, the cumulative annual revenue from car parking services alone could be in the region of Rs 1,000 crore.

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