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Resilient Telecommunications

The Government's Strategy for enhancing the resilience of telecommunications

Strand 2. Privileged telecommunications schemes

Some technical solutions have restricted availability for example, they may be private or be commercial schemes that have 'privileged access'. When we talk about 'privileged access' we focus on four schemes where, for one reason or another, access is limited to those with a role in an emergency.

Privilege access schemes can form an important part of an organisation's arrangements to enhance the resilience of their telecommunications. However, some of the current schemes, notably access to mobile and fixed public telecommunications infrastructures have acquired a level of importance that far exceeds their utility and as such would only contribute to resilience at the very high-end. Others, such as Airwave, are only really suitable as an every-day solution for those organisations with the need to be in contact with the Emergency Services and are familiar with the protocols applicable to using private mobile radios.

The four schemes are:

• Privileged access to the fixed-line telephone system;
• Privileged access to mobile telephone networks;
• Access by those outside the Emergency Services to mobile communications using Airwave; and
• Commercially available satellite communications equipment made available to responders through a centrally-negotiated Catalogue.

We will be introducing a common framework for entitlement to and management of these schemes. Access to the four schemes will be managed through a high-level list covering broad groups of responders who are, in principle, entitled to access privileged services. Narrower sets of criteria will be laid down for specific privileged services where there may be capacity or other factors limiting the numbers able to take up that service. There will be an awareness campaign to promote knowledge of the schemes and who is eligible to apply along with a straight-forward application process. We propose to put arrangements in place with the service providers to ensure that management information is provided regularly to the responder community so that take-up can be monitored and emerging gaps identified and addressed.