How network resilience ensures connectivity amid crisis

On Monday, Feb. 6, 2023 at 4:17 a.m. local time an earthquake of 7.8 magnitude struck south central of Turkey. This earthquake was followed by a second earthquake of magnitude 7.5 with the epicenter of Elbistan City. It went down in history as one of the biggest natural disasters in Turkey's history. There was a widespread damage in a huge area of 38,600 square miles, inhabited by around 15 million people. This disaster claimed the lives of 50,783 people and left 107,204 injured. In a crisis of this magnitude, communication is crucial as it is a life saving factor and depends on the service continuity.

Service outages became inevitable as seismic waves affected and broke down fibers, impacting an area covering 15.6% of the population. Numerous fibers and base stations within this area suffered damage, leading to service interruptions for all service providers. Intervening in these breaks and damages was challenging due to harsh conditions.

Service providers required to know how many services, customers were impacted and how they prioritized remediation of service impacting problems. However, one of the three major CSPs in Turkey handled full system recovery and resolved connectivity, traffic and capacity issues of their network in the shortest time possible through Star Suite t0 - t1 report and root cause analysis.

‘‘While under normal circumstances, an average of 70 alarms occur per minute, after the first earthquake, the number of alarms reached 16480 within 2 minutes, followed by an average of 250 alarms every minute. Again, under normal circumstances, an average of 102 fiber and 583 trail interruptions are observed throughout the day. However, just after the first earthquake, 70 fiber and 604 trail interruptions were observed within 2 minutes.’’

With the number of alarms increasing that much, the umbrella management system could not handle that much alarm load and overlooking was quite possible. It was a big challenge to determine which alarms had already existed in t0 and the ones that occurred after the earthquake (t1).

Every second delayed after the earthquake is vital and directly affects human life, so delays must be eliminated. Even if the alarms were processed without any delay, it required huge effort and time to see the difference between two periods (t0 and t1). There should have been a much more effective way of seeing the big picture in order to respond quickly. This can only be achieved by identifying the exact points, underlying issues and potentially affected services and customers.

In the wake of the devastating earthquakes that struck south central Turkey in February 2023, it became clear that we needed to take proactive steps to ensure the resilience of our communication networks during times of crisis. The events described above underscore the critical role that uninterrupted communication plays in saving lives and coordinating relief efforts. We must invest in robust infrastructure and innovative technologies that can withstand the impact of natural disasters and recover swiftly from disruptions. Furthermore, it is imperative that we develop advanced monitoring and analysis tools to quickly identify and prioritize service-impacting issues. Every second counts in a crisis, and delays can have fatal consequences. Let us unite in our commitment to building resilient communication networks and fostering a culture of preparedness. Together, we can ensure that our communities are safer and better equipped to face the challenges of the future. Now is time to act.