Risks

A widespread communication outage could disrupt the continuity of other essential services and completely paralyze electronic communications. The seriousness of this threat lies in the fact that people’s lives and health could be endangered, and widespread panic could grip society.

The most likely causes of a communication outage are a large-scale power outage, a cyberattack, and/or a failure of physical infrastructure. If these occur simultaneously, they may trigger a widespread communication outage. However, the likelihood of this happening is considered low, provided these events do not occur at the same time in a coordinated and systematic way. This is because telecom operators have preventive and response measures in place for different threats. For example, in the event of a large-scale infrastructure failure, national roaming can be activated. This means that operators can use one another’s infrastructure to maintain service continuity.

Threats

• Main sources of risk arise from weather, technology, and the human factor (failures of domestic or international physical infrastructure). Extreme weather conditions can cause widespread power outages, which in turn lead to communication outages. Since communication services rely on various technological solutions, supply chain risks and cyberattacks also pose significant threats.
• Physical damage to domestic or international infrastructure has been the most common materialized threat in recent years, with potential to affect the continuity of communications. However, in such a case, it would have to involve a clearly large-scale disruption of international connections–single connection failures alone will not cause a communication outage.

Guidelines

Most communication tools used in everyday life depend to some extent on electricity: television, radio, telephone, etc. A widespread power outage may therefore be accompanied by a communication outage. To prepare for such a scenario, you can take preventive measures:

• Write down the phone numbers of important contacts on paper–if your phone’s battery dies, you won’t be able to access them.
• If possible, use the services of multiple telecom operators.
• Keep a battery-powered radio at home to stay updated with news and official instructions.
• Keep essential cash at home.
• Think how you could call for help if necessary.