Lessons Learned from the 2018 Ottawa Tornado Disaster: Commercial Cellular Networks in Canada are not Resilient - we need a robust PSBN

The recent tornado disaster in Ottawa has cast a very serious light on the disaster preparedness of the big 3 telecom service providers in Canada, with wide area outages that lasted in some parts of Ottawa for days.

More concerning is that the disaster impacted First Responder data access in addition to civilian access. Clearly commercial cellular's "best effort" service philosophy doesn't cut it when it comes to maintaining community safety. We need to address this issue from a risk management stance given we're in the midst of increasing numbers of natural disasters due to changing weather patterns, increasing DoS threats from potential Cyber attacks, and increasing man-made disasters to boot.

In my view the issue here is much deeper than just beefing up battery backup at the sites. Fundamentally the big telcos architect their networks for profit - not availability - and not resiliency. With centralized NOCs and centralized architectures, commercial cellular networks are simply not designed to gracefully degrade (instead of outright fail) in the event of disaster.

In summary - Canada needs a core skeleton of always-on, distributed, resilient Public Safety Broadband Network (PSBN) cell sites for First Responders, coupled with longer failover times for the 1000's of plain vanilla commercial grade cell sites. A viable business case exists and the tools are available now to deploy a robust PSBN.

The solution - in my view - is two-fold:

1.) A Canadian Public Safety Broadband Network (PSBN) for First Responders - with a distributed architecture for survivability, enhanced Cyber standards, and RF sites that provide essential on-street service, along with hardened and secured cell sites.

This way First Responders have secure and robust access to essential data in disasters and times of need, a distributed + survivable architecture, and always-on access in the event of civilians swamping cellular networks en-masse during disasters.

The good news is RF spectrum has already been reserved by ISED for this exact PSBN use (ie. Bandclass 14 in the 700MHz band) and there are some early adopter First Responder agencies that have started nascent deployments. We now need to have the Federal and Provincial governments support these early adopter agencies + aid in the deployment of distributed infrastructure on this valuable 700MHz spectrum for First Responders.

Building "skeletons" of PSBN on-street cell coverage for First Responders would actually be significantly cheaper than retrofitting the 1000's of cell sites that reside in the big 3 telco networks. Also, this approach would bring value to municipalities with added secure data pipes for 4G / 5G Smart City applications that control critical infrastructure (eg. secure data for sensitive electrical networks, water supply, traffic controls, natural gas distribution, the "Secure Industrial Internet of Things", etc). Deploying 700MHz PSBNs in cities is a win-win for First Responders and municipalities - and can save taxpayers costs at the same time.

The business case truly exists for a distributed and resilient Canadian PSBN - we now need governments to assist leading First Responder agencies currently working on the PSBN and help move this dossier forward in an expeditious manner.

2.) Better battery and deployables strategies mandated for Commercial Telcos - So the second part of the solution is mandating deployable cell-on-wheels strategies for plain vanilla commercial grade service along with 24 hour (or more) battery backup in key sites. A subset skeleton of "dominant" carrier sites in telco networks could be earmarked for this special treatment and hardening. All this could be mandated via new disaster contingency standards for telcos from the CRTC and ISED.

Additionally, a fleet of deployable cell sites for commercial spectrum (they're called Site on Wheels - or SOWs) along with a strategy for distributed deployment should be mandated for major carriers in the country. Also key in any good emergency contingency would be a well practiced action plan for setup of these deployables in times of need - so we need to include long-term vigilance, training and practice in Canada's deployable SOW preparations.

The fact is that wireless cell phones are supplanting old copper based telephones as Canadians' communications medium of choice. Canadians continue to "cut the cord" on land-lines and embrace wireless - therefore in response to this change we need to bolster Canadians' new communications medium of choice for 911 calls and emergency comms.

A Business Model for PSBNs & Emergency Preparedness - In terms of a business model for this preparation - there are a number of viable options. An "emergency deployables service" could be handled by the telcos in house, or contracted out to say specialist firms focused on handling this niche disaster contingency for the telcos, or could even be handled by the PSBN itself. Governments could decide whether to allow the telcos a levy for this preparation, or to provide one-off grant funding to telcos and the PSBN. Regarding the PSBN business case, cost recovery for infrastructure investment is possible via municipalities running key 4G / 5G / IoT / Smart City data for critical infrastructure on these ultra secure PSBN networks, and via public-private partnerships.

The Bottom Line: - Canada needs a core skeleton of always-on, distributed, resilient PSBN cell sites for First Responders, coupled with longer failover times for the 1000's of plain vanilla commercial grade cell sites. A PSBN focused approach can actually save money for munis and help create Smart City data pipes for critical infrastructure. Improved commercial networks can fulfill a complementary role to a robust PSBN for First Responders.

As a concerned citizen and Canadian engineer, I think we need to learn from the unfortunate Ottawa disaster and ensure we improve community safety and emergency response in our country, given a world where we face the increasing prospect of natural disasters and flooding due to global warming, increasing earthquake risks (ie. the big one in Vancouver), burgeoning Cybersecurity threats, and increasing numbers of man-made disasters.