How long will it take to re-connect your telephones in an emergency?

Karen Jones — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 09:43:14 +0000

Few people realise that the most vulnerable cables within their telephone circuits are those situated between the local serving exchange and their offices. Known as ‘the last mile’ these cables are often situated only 15cm beneath the road and are at genuine risk from road works and facility maintenance. In addition many telephone switches are situated within the basement of office buildings, quite literally sitting beneath main water pipes serving the offices.

In contrast BT is required to ensure that its exchanges provide a resilience of 9.9999% so that in the case of floods, fires or any other emergency event, phone calls still can be served from the exchange. Unfortunately many companies do not have a sufficient business continuity plan to accomodate for these strengths and weaknesses within their telecoms circuits.

An innovative new solution to serve such customers is being launched into the market. The Portable Recovery Unit from GemaTech is a subscription based service, whereby for a small annual fee and a cost per use if it is activated, should the worst happen and the cable between the exchange and office buidling is cut, or the pipes above the switch burst, the PRU can be installed within the exchange within 4 hours to re-route incoming calls to alternative mobile phones and landline phones. What I like about this product is that it is so simple and effective that any type of business can benefit from it. The initial investment is low and if the worst happens, you have a rapid response to recovering your customer’s incoming calls without relying on your last mile circuit provider, who could take considerably longer to restore your normal service.

Author: Karen Jones

Tube strikes in London could could cost UK economy £100m

Karen Jones — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 08:52:31 +0000

Business group London First estimates that the strikes planned today on London’s underground could cost the UK economy around £100m, as quoted on the BBC news site today. The trouble is this would not be the first time tube strikes have directly affected UK revenues , and no doubt it will be the last. So how does the company based in Central London limit the damage of lost hours from employees taking longer to get to the office, or indeed not coming in at all? The simple answer is through remote working, and I know, before you even say it, not every company is set up for enabling employees to work from home or elsewhere. Well maybe not all of the time, but surely equipping those key employees to have their incoming calls re-routed home and secure access to their data for that ‘emergency’ such as a tube strike, is worth the investment of time and systems? We are not talking about reversing the everyday culture of an organisation here, what we need to do is simply embrace flexibility so that organisations are not plunged into chaos the minute the transport system in the city grinds to a halt. Let’s face it if it isn’t a tube strike, there could be any number of diruptions which restrict employees from working in the office on the odd occasion, such as; terrorist threats, flash floods, power failures, or even more simply office maintenance or re-decoration!

GemaTech Technology Blog » emergency

How long will it take to re-connect your telephones in an emergency?

Tube strikes in London could could cost UK economy £100m