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Box 7. Telecom network risks management

During the rainy season in Lima, Perú, some mobile sites from the Telecom Operator Telefónica, are
exposed to flooding risks. In case of weather alerts, the operations team of the company implements
actions to prevent and avoid the damages to the facilities and infrastructure. For this potential risk,
they have defined a specific fixed and mobile operator integrated procedure that defines the action
plan to emergency cases. This document describes the action plan for all operational areas that have
responsibility for the operation and maintenance activities of the network infrastructure. The
procedure also describes the methodology for communications and notifications to apply in case of
emergency, and the operational details for each step of an emergency plan. Telefónica Perú has also
taken preventive steps to protect the network sites. The total cost of these preventive actions was
extremely low in comparison to the potential damage of the equipment and network failure. The
solution consisted of locking the doors of network sites with sandbags located in both sides of the
door (inside and outside the room), as shown in the pictures below:

Source: Telefónica S.A and ITU (2013). "Resilient pathways: the adaptation of the ICT sector to climate change"
http://www.itu.int/en/ITU‐T/climatechange/Documents/Publications/Resilient_Pathways‐E.PDF
The need for improving the resilience of telecommunication infrastructure in cities when a disaster
occurs has been stressed in a study commissioned by ITU, Resilient Pathways: The adaptation of the
ICT sector to climate change (ITU, 2014). This study responds to the need of exploring further the
effects of climate change on the ICT sector, and aims at raising awareness of the need to design and
implement strategies for the ICT sector to better cope with a disaster in cities context. Additional
examples of initiatives to increase the resilience in the telecommunications sector at the city‐level
are provided in Box 8.

ITU‐T's Technical Reports and Specifications 565