As we march solemnly towards the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and as Hurricane Irene threatens the entire East Coast of the US, today we experienced a rare, 5.8-magnitude earthquake in Virginia, shutting down a nearby nuclear power plant this afternoon and sending out seismic waves felt by millions from Georgia to New England. The unusual quake forced many people to evacuate office buildings, such as in DC and NYC, though no major damage or injuries have been reported. Perhaps most notable is that a quake this strong has not occurred in this area since 1897. Notable too is the reach of the quake. As the underlying bedrock is largely a solid sheet, earthquake waves traveled as far north as Canada.
So what does this new "rattle" mean for telecom? According to CNN, "a surge in calls by cell phone users after the event affected service in many areas". But beyond this, what about the physical networks that our communications depend upon each day? What about the networks that first responders and financial institutions and hospitals rely on? Do we have physical cable security in the event of natural or manmade catastrophe? Are we preparing today for the worst case scenerios of tomorrow?
Perhaps it is poignant to revisit the words of Rob Powell of Telecom Ramblings from April 2009:
It is common knowledge that there are major communication hubs throughout the United States where global, national, regional and local networks converge to interconnect with one another. One of the real concerns should be coming from customers who perhaps should be assured their connections are traversed along protected rings that provide redundancy should there be a cable break, to ensure all communications are re-routed.
“Hibernia Atlantic has been preaching about this threat for years, warning the implications of a catastrophic network failure and its impact on national security, the banking/finance systems, communication and broadcast systems,” commented Eric Gutshall, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Hibernia Atlantic. Mr. Gutshall continues that “Hibernia also stated that there even needs to be national security for submarine cables and Cable Landing Stations, as well as terrestrial infrastructure in major communication hubs. Our cable is purposely built outside of major metropolitan areas such as New York and London to provide more security as required by our customers.”
According to the company, Hibernia Atlantic has engaged with the Department of Homeland Security to request they view Hibernia Atlantic’s submarine cable system and cable stations as critical infrastructure due to the high-volume of Financial, communication, broadcast, Government and Internet traffic that is handled by the company.
Hibernia Atlantic has designed its network with ‘Security and Diversity’ in mind from day one, knowing full well that a cut of its subsea cable could impact a wide-variety of business communications around the world. In fact, Mr. Gutshall has presented on the choke points and communication arteries connecting Cable Landing Stations to the metropolitan areas, to the Federal Reserve and 40 key and top members of the financial community.
Recently the company has also launched its new product, 'Hibernia Secure', for the financial community on its Global Financial Network (GFN). To ensure safer and faster trading, 'Hibernia Secure' offers one failover route that avoids common, congested corridors, such as the waterways around New York and London, in case of regional failure. 'Hibernia Secure' will automatically re-route GFN traffic to the client's secondary route choice in the unlikely event of signal loss. Service will then be re-routed back to the primary or faster route as soon as that route becomes available.
Hibernia Atlantic has been a leader in communicating these issues to both network operators and customers, reiterating the importance of knowing what network services you use and what features make it resilient. Hibernia has also been a leader in delivering more secure network choices and solutions. It's no wonder the company's tagline is ‘Security through Diversity.”
