UK businesses could be vulnerable to failures of the mobile
phone network during power failures like those that affected the US
and Canada recently.
Businesses that rely on cell-based mobile networks to communicate
with field workers could find themselves cut off in as little as
two hours if power cuts hit mobile cell base stations.
In North America last month mobile phone networks began to degrade
as base station batteries ran down following cuts that plunged the
states on the east coast into darkness.
Ovum analyst Richard Dineen said, "This is a warning to look
through provisions for disaster recovery in your mobile phone
contracts.
"The mobile phone is being increasingly seen as a primary
communications device. But it is not a first line service - it is
not guaranteed under regulations to provide that same levels of
service as the fixed network. People have become reliant on mobile
telephony but it has limitations."
RAC IT director Trevor Didcock said his company was protected to
some extent as it has the use of two separate mobile networks,
though these are both cell-based and therefore vulnerable.
"There would be two impacts of such an outage on us. Customers
would be less able to contact us. People rely on their mobiles and
there's not a lot we can do about that."
l As Computer Weekly went to press power outages inLondon affected
several million people. While cell back-up was not stretched by the
35-minute power cut, many people reported mobile networks being
inaccessible due to overloading.
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