UK Resilience

Resilient Telecommunications

The Government's Strategy for enhancing the resilience of responder's telecommunications

The Strategy for enhancing the resilience of emergency responders' telecommunications [PDF, 8 pages, 432KB] is available for download.

There is no one simple solution to enhancing the resilience of telecommunications. Experience suggests that however much is spent on enhancing its resilience, reliance on any one telecommunications system carries a significant inherent risk. It is principally for this reason that we believe that resilience is founded on the principles of diversity and through adopting a layered fall-back approach.

Telecommunications are rapidly becoming a commodity: there is a wide choice of physical infrastructures and services run over them offered by a large number of private enterprises. However, wide choice disguises much inter-dependency on underling infrastructures and services which works to the detriment of resilience. Because of the close integration between our telecommunications infrastructures those that are truly independent of commercial core infrastructures command a premium. When the risk of wide-scale unavailability of commercial infrastructures is taken into consideration it can be difficult to justify significant expenditure on duplicate systems that may only rarely, if ever, be used.

The key to enhanced resilience is therefore founded on: encouraging and supporting a better understanding among responders of the systems available to them and their respective strengths and weaknesses; enhancing the resilience of existing systems wherever possible, ensuring that where high integrity infrastructure is warranted it is regularly used, and greater inter-agency planning to enhance mutual aid and interoperability.

The strategy therefore comprises four broad strands:

• Strand 1. Working with providers and responders to enhance the resilience of every-day commercially available telecommunications
• Strand 2. Improving the management, take-up and resilience of privileged telecommunications schemes that are only accessible to emergency responders
• Strand 3. Delivering a high integrity telecommunications infrastructure providing connectivity and services between the main multi-agency co ordination centres at the national, regional and local level and
• Strand 4. Developing a means for securely sharing information between all local regional and national responders both in preparing for and in response to an emergency

Policy Objectives

In consultation with a range of stakeholders in central government and elsewhere we have developed the following policy objectives to guide our work. They are:

• Ensure responders can communicate and share information effectively in an emergency:
• Encourage diversity of telecommunications provision; and
• Make telecommunications networks more resilient.
• Ensure responders know about privileged telecommunications services, and that such services function effectively.
• Make information available on the take up of privileged services

What we have done

Last spring, we established a project team in Cabinet Office to review existing arrangements for communications between emergency responders, identify weaknesses, and to develop, in consultation with key stakeholders in central government and elsewhere, a strategy setting out how resilience could be improved. Subsequently we have:

• Developed policy objectives in consultation with stakeholders in central government and elsewhere;
• Commissioned through the Regional Resilience Teams in England and the Devolved Administrations elsewhere a survey of existing telecommunications provision and key user requirements;
• Organised a national workshop bringing together representatives from LRFs (Local Resilience Forum) around the country to get their views on the priority areas for action;
• Established a stakeholder panel with representatives from the emergency services, LGA (Local Government Association), the Devolved Administrations and key Whitehall departments to advise on the development of the strategy;
• Revised the arrangements for activating Privileged access to mobile telecommunications networks.
• Clarified arrangements regarding the resilience of cellular mobile telephony.
• Made available to responders commercial satellite communications equipment through a centrally-negotiated catalogue.
• Established LRF Telecommunications Sub-Groups.
• Commenced consultation with our stakeholders on a  High Integrity Telecommunications System to link key responder's premises.
• Worked with the Emergency Planning College [External website] to revise the Communication 3 course to Resilient Communication Strategies for Emergency Management to provide training aligned with our strategy.
• Consulted extensively with OFCOM (the telecommunications regulator) and commercial service providers.