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| When devastating floods hit Germany last year, fixed-line phone networks were one of the pieces of infrastructure that were damaged. With communications down, the emergency services struggled to co-ordinate disaster relief and ordinary people had no way to call for help or check on families and friends. |  |
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O2 Germany responded to the emergency by donating 1,000 pre-pay phones to aid agencies and the hardest hit flood victims each with 30 Euros call credits. We also gave more than 7,500 selected account customers in flood zones a credit of 35 Euros on their next bill. Key parts of our system were also quickly re-inforced and our network proved to be incredibly robust through the crisis. One reason for this is that antennae base stations on our German network are connected to each other by a microwave link, rather than fixed lines. In addition mobile base stations were brought in to replace six fixed stations that were under water and 20 emergency generators were used at stations hit by power cuts. Usage of the network soared during the crisis to two and a half times the normal rate. Thanks to our efforts to shore up the system, our network performed well, with only a few hours of interruptions to the service during the entire crisis. We believe that mobile telecommunications can play a particular part in emergency situations, for example our Airwave business in the UK is devoted to enabling emergency services to communicate securely through its unique technology and new network. |
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The floods that swept eastern Europe in August 2002 were the worst natural
disaster to hit the region in many years. The hardest hit area in Germany
was around the city of Dresden, in the east of the country, where the river
Elbe broke all previous flood records. The destruction caused to homes,
businesses and public buildings - including the City's main art gallery
and opera house - was enormous.
Jürgen Hegemann, O2 Germany's director in the eastern region, said: "The question came in from the government - can we help? They came to O2 first and because of our response there was no need to involve the other networks. It was a great example of our values and really showed our can-do attitude. There was a good partnership between local teams in the east and head office in Munich." Helping to deal with the crisis earned O2 valuable publicity and proved a valuable test of the strength of our network. |
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| What are the facts about mobile technology and our children? >> | |||
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| PDF: THE REPORT > |
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