Emergency assistance

Together with utilities providers, mobile and fixed-line telecommunication operators have obligations to plan and respond to emergencies in partnership with the emergency services and local authorities. In the UK this falls under the Civil Contingencies Act.

In government terms, this means protecting the resilience of the national infrastructure, including services which, if compromised, could cause large loss of life, harm to the economy or carry grave social consequences.

O2 Germany provides access for authorities or special industries in case of emergency, in accordance with the law. A significant number of emergency agencies have chosen O2 Germany as their telecommunications service provider.

O2 UK worked with authorities to help trace customers who had been affected by natural disasters, such as the South-East Asia tsunami in 2004 or the more recent earthquake in Asia in 2005 (Pakistan). We also notified people in affected areas of outbound and emergency flights.

London bombings

The need for seamless communication between emergency services and for mobile networks to be resilient in times of emergency were fully tested during the tragic terrorist attacks in London in July 2005.

We had to show we could handle extreme conditions and a heavy volume of calls and texts immediately afterwards.

Following the explosions, call volumes on our network exceeded normal levels and we carried 57 per cent more voice traffic in central London than usual. Text message volumes increased 20 per cent on the day across the whole country. Despite network congestion in parts of London, most customers were able to make calls at some stage during the day.

The situation was complicated by four major incidents confined to a fairly small geographical area and, at around noon on 7 July, the City of London Police asked us to apply restrictions to the network or ‘access overload control’.

This shut the network to the public in the immediate area around Aldgate underground station for several hours, but enabled pre-authorised emergency responders with appropriate SIM cards to continue use.

O2 and the other mobile network operators are currently producing an information pack on emergency planning.

O2 Airwave deployment

O2 Airwave is designed to link the emergency services through its secure digital network, but it is not yet fully deployed by all major services.

On 7 July, O2 Airwave sent in specialist staff and equipment to Russell Square underground station. We dropped access points for the analogue network communications of the London Fire Service and London Ambulance Service into underground locations specified by the Metropolitan Police, enabling communication from the damaged trains deep inside the tunnels. This was of particular assistance in the days and weeks following 7 July.

O2 Airwave terminals were provided to emergency services and underground engineering staff who asked us to supplement their own communications facilities.

Engineers had in previous months been testing this equipment to determine the ideal combination of facilities for just such a major disaster. A few weeks later the Police IT Organisation (PITO) contracted O2 Airwave to provide a major incident service for the London Underground.

There have been suggestions that the use of TETRA handsets, the mobile equipment used by our O2 Airwave users, interferes with life-support equipment in ambulances and accident and emergency units. A recently published report by Mobile Telecommunications Health Research programme has found the technology is no more likely to interfere with this equipment than any other GSM device.

O2 Airwave brings major benefits to the health service – allowing ambulance crews to transmit patients' vital signs directly to hospital staff, so they can authorise the administration of life-saving drugs.