Kriti Bhuju
KATHMANDU, Dec 18: Groupe Speciale Mobile Association (GSMA) has recommended to the Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) to form a crisis management team (CMT) and make disaster response plan in order to continue their business and make sure that the subscribers are able to contact their friends and families during disasters.
The association made the recommendation on the basis of its assessment conducted after six weeks of the April 25 earthquake that hit Nepal.
Publishing the assessment report on Wednesday, GSMA has suggested MNOs to form CMT comprising of key executives, essential key supporting players and heads of departments, each with pre-defined roles and responsibilities for implementing the disaster response and crisis management plan.
GSMA has also suggested installing early warning systems, issuing advisories on network restoration updates and MNO’s emergency services, sharing information via social media accounts on Twitter and Facebook to be connected with customers.
Ministry of Home Affairs, Nepal Telecom and Nepal Red Cross have been working jointly to send text messages to mobile subscribers about flood and other disaster warnings, health advice and other important messages using a SMS system named Trilogy Emergency Relief application (TERA).
Pratibha Vaidya, spokesperson of NT, told Republica that the system is already ready. “We will soon test the service in the Koshi River basin in the first phase,” she added.
GSMA has also suggested advocating ‘text not talk’ campaigns to help raise awareness of congestion among subscribers, which, if successful, can both reduce network congestion as well as increase subscribers’ chances of effectively communicating. Similarly it has also suggested using data-based voice messaging to ease congestion.
Right after the April earthquake, Ncell as well as NT had requested customers to use text messaging service.
The report also said mobile network infrastructure faced limited damage from the earthquake. “A combination of interrupted power supply, human capacity limitations and process challenges contributed to failures across the chain where they occurred. Despite the diversity of obstacles and dependencies, mobile operators demonstrated an impressive capacity to adapt, innovate and create solutions to ensure that their customers and those supporting the humanitarian response were able to communicate,” the report states.
The report has also highlighted the need forge consensus on issues of prioritization “for which government bodies, the humanitarian community and MNOs need to come and work together”.
“We all worked together during the earthquake. However, there is a need of coordinated approach and concrete plan on how the government, humanitarian organization and MNOs can work together effectively during disasters so that customers will continue to get uninterrupted service,” Milan Sharma, corporate communication expert of Ncell, said.
The Head of GSMA’s Disaster Response Program travelled to Nepal and conducted an assessment focusing on the experiences of Ncell, followed by NT, Nepal Telecom Authority (NTA), and humanitarian partners: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA), Telecom Sans Frontiers, and the Emergency Telecommunications Cluster.
GSMA also believed that the recommendations based on Nepal earthquake will help its members in preparing for earthquake and other emergencies.
Republica, 17 Dec 2015