Government to pilot disaster communication network in October

New Delhi: The government will start field trials for a Public Protection and Disaster Relief (PPDR) network in disaster-prone areas starting October, following the finalisation of its operational model this month, a senior government official said on Wednesday.

While speaking at a Broadband India Forum (BIF) event on critical communications, Joint Secretary in the Home Ministry, Prasanna R, said that the proof of concept for the PPDR network has already been done with all four telecom operators in the country.

"PoC (proof of concept) has been done. We will finalise the model this month and the pilot will start in October," he said while talking about the rollout of the network.


The PPDR network is designed in a manner to ensure continuity of communication among government agencies and alert the public at the time of a natural disaster.

Prasanna said that the government is in discussion with both ISRO and private players to integrate satellite communication also in the PPDR network.

He said that the PPDR network will be deployed in 10 zones, including some of the border districts, disaster-prone districts, metros, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, etc.

The new PPDR network is proposed to be a broadband base that can support live images, videos and text in addition to voice communication. The advanced PPDR network is already in place in countries like Sweden, the US, England, Finland, France, Hungary, and Romania.

According to data shared by Swedish telecom gear maker Ericsson, the advanced PPDR network is in the consultation stage.

Addressing the event, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Chairman A K Lahoti said that when a natural disaster strikes or a major accident occurs, public order is under threat, then communication becomes an instrument of public safety.

"Mission critical communication systems have to be engineered to ensure high reliability, resilience, availability, real-time responsiveness and interoperability," he said.

Lahoti said from an architectural perspective, such systems are designed with redundant and hardened infrastructure, including failover connectivity, backup power, resilient network elements and geographically distributed core networks to ensure continuity of service even under extreme conditions and infrastructure disruptions.

He said that TRAI had made key recommendations on telecom network failures during emergencies and flash disasters, recommending priority routing of calls of persons engaged in response and recovery way back in November 2013.

Lahoti said that the regulator has given a series of recommendations for leveraging communication resources for public safety, including a single-number 112-based integrated emergency communication and response system and spectrum.

"Trai has issued a consultation paper on the regulatory framework for vehicle to infrastructure communication service. Though vehicle-to-everything is not itself a PPDR network, it can play a complementary role in critical communications and disaster management by enabling rapid, low-latency exchange of safety and emergency information among vehicles, roadside infrastructure and traffic management systems," he said.

BIF President TV Ramachandran said when most networks don't work, PPDR should be working and it is something like a first network.

"It has got to be a first responder for any abnormal crisis situation, whether it's a natural disaster, law and order issue, or a disaster of some other kind. We have had so many in India to that, in Gujarat, we had it in the Tsunami. Today we talk of 5G, 6G, anything is possible. Satellite will play a very important role. You cannot imagine coping with a disaster like what's happening in Nepal or Kargil, whatever, without satellite connectivity, good satellite connectivity," he said.

Ramachandran said that the country is well connected with mobile networks to handle normal circumstances but it is not enough.

"We need to have more of all other technologies also coming in. We need to create a network, an all-Indian network, which is always 100 per cent available," he said.