AVAYA CEO URGES COOPERATION IN DoD SWITCH INTEROPERABILITY PLAN
Avaya CEO Donald Peterson urged communications network operators and equipment manufacturers Wed. to rethink how they managed telecom resources, emphasizing need to design networks to ensure adequate corporate and national emergency preparedness. Among national security needs that industry should accommodate are Dept. of Defense (DoD) interoperability and compatibility requirements for switches linked to Defense Switch Network (DSN), he said in afternoon keynote at Armed Forces Communications & Electronics Assn. Homeland Security Conference in Washington: “It’s a call to action for your suppliers to answer.”
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Defense authorization bill for FY 2003 directed Defense Secy. to develop switch inventory and risk-assessment processes, including establishment of enforceable testing, validation and certification procedures for switches within and connected to DSN (CD July 1 p4). Rules also are applicable to public switched telecom networks (PSTNs) and any related hardware or software that sends or receives voice, data or video signals across PSTNs to DSN.
Peterson warned telecom companies against complacency in development and implementation of emergency network recovery plans, which often never get beyond initial planning stages: “You must know if your preparedness plan works.” That knowledge can be gained only by company drills and tests, not simply through crafting of planning documents, he said. He pointed out that 43% of businesses that suffered disasters never reopened, and that 27% of those that did get back on their feet eventually failed.
Communications network “continuity cannot wait,” Peterson said, and industry therefore shouldn’t delay implementation of business continuity and network upgrade projects. He emphasized that network security and recovery problems could be addressed with currently available resources and didn’t necessarily require massive undertakings and investments: “[Telecom industry has] neither the money or the time” to rip out old networks “and put in something completely new… Don’t reinvent the network. In fact, rethink how the network is deployed.”
Perot Systems Exec. Vp James Champy said in morning keynote that failure of Concert joint venture of AT&T and BT should serve as learning tool for govt. agencies and corporations undergoing consolidation or modernization, such as new Dept. of Homeland Security. He said “all the elements were there for a successful alliance” at Concert, especially benefits that could have been derived from elimination of redundancies.
Champy said Concert project eliminated need for AT&T to deploy infrastructure in Europe and for BT to build networks in U.S. However, its global telecom concept suffered from poor planning and “huge differences in management styles” between AT&T and BT executives, he said: “It was a disaster. It was such a disaster that the partners didn’t know how to take it apart.” -- Steve Peacock
AFCEA Notebook…
National Security Agency (NSA) is working on memorandum of understanding with Dept. of Homeland Security and FBI on plan to disseminate signals intelligence data to state and local officials. NSA Homeland Security Support Coordinator Larry Castro said on intelligence-sharing panel that tentative plan would set stage for increased access to declassified terrorism-related information by state and local law enforcement agencies. NSA would provide relevant data gleaned from electronic surveillance operations to DHS and FBI, which in turn would decide how to transmit those data “downward” to other agencies, he said. Castro also said Terrorism Threat Integration Center (TTIC) proposed by White House apparently would assume part of role once envisioned for Information Analysis & Infrastructure Protection Directorate at DHS (see separate story). He said details of how intelligence analysis function would be taken over by TTIC “remains to be worked out,” but “the right groundwork has been done… NSA is as prepared to support the TTIC as it was DHS.”