U.N. Contemplates Telecom Country Code for Relief Operations
GENEVA -- Better telecom equipment, more member states signing a new international convention, and possibly a unique U.N. country code in the international communications system are needed for disaster relief efforts and a full-fledged early warning system, U.N. officials said.
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Reliable telecoms and Internet are a crucial underpinning of all disaster mitigation and relief efforts, officials said. “Agreements for installation of radio equipment in some cases where foreign assistance was badly needed have been made on the local and even personal level, instead of on the rule of law,” said Marco Ferrari, deputy head, Dept. of Humanitarian Aid with the Swiss Agency for Development & Cooperation.
With the Tampere Convention coming into force and the subsequent change to national laws for compliance with Telecom for Disaster Relief (TDR), this should change, officials said. The expectations for the convention are very high and the Jan. 8 ratification already is having an effect in saving lives, officials said.
Public telecom infrastructure not destroyed in a disaster is frequently overwhelmed in the aftermath. Incoming voice and data traffic after the 2004 Niigata Prefecture earthquake in Japan was 47 times greater than average, and resulted in traffic congestion for about 6 hours, said Manabu Kanaya, dir.-Telecom Systems Div. at the Telecom Bureau of the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs & Communications.
Disaster preparedness must include public telecom resources for victims, officials said. A disaster voice message service was started 19 min. after the quake: 112,700 messages were posted and 241,900 were replayed. A disaster message bulletin board enabled portable Internet subscribers to post messages beginning 10 min. after the quake; 84,500 people registered messages telling family and friends of the personal safety and whereabouts, he added.
A comprehensive report (ITU-R M.2033) details the needs of future systems for public protection and disaster relief and “the bandwidth requirements we're envisaging for new, advanced systems to be implemented around 2010,” said Langtry. Protection and radio spectrum needs for advanced meteorological and earth exploration satellite systems will be discussed at the forthcoming World Radio Conference in 2007, officials said.
Creating an E.164 country code for the U.N. is under consideration. The E.164 identity would be subdivided by area code specifying individual TDR units. This would allow telecom to be completely independent of national network conditions and potential congestion. The traffic could be clearly identified and managed, so even if it’s in the normal network, calls that are headed to the E.164 identity could have priority. The international connectivity would have to be sufficient for telephone connectivity and broadband, Homan said.
More work needs to be done, officials said: Tampere needs to be ratified by additional member states and the legislation needs to be incorporated into the national law of the ratifying members, officials said. ITU has allocated $250,000 to assess telecom infrastructure in the tsunami-hit countries of Indonesia, Maldives, Sri Lanka, prepare a telecom rehabilitation plan and help develop emergency communications as part of the Tsunami Early Warning System for the Indian Ocean.