This section features background information and resources relevant to the current research theme. It includes resources produced by WDR and external sources and is organised by regions and topics. An archive of resources recommended in previous research cycles is also available along with news from the WDR/Intelecon Regulatory News Service.
Online Resources on Emergency Communication Print E-mail
Wednesday, 19 January 2005

In our research we have come some good resources related to emergency communication, policy and regulation. A few of these are below. We will be expanding this section of the website over the next few months. Please send any relevant links to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Organisations, protocols and procedures

Australian Government. (2003). Natural Disaster Mitigation Programme. Department of Transport and Regional Services. Retrieved May, 2004. Available http://www.dotars.gov.au/naturaldisasters/index.aspx

European Telecommunications Standards Institute. (2003). EMTEL--Emergency Telecommunications. Retrieved May, 2004. Available http://www.emtel.etsi.org/overview.htm

Industry Canada Emergency Telecommunications Projects
Information about a number of national and international projects are underway that support the aims of emergency telecommunications.
http://spectrum.ic.gc.ca/urgent/english/projects.html

National Communications System. (2004, April). National Communications System (homepage). Department of Homeland Security. Retrieved May, 2004. Available http://www.ncs.gov/index.html

The Partnership for Public Warning seeks to bring together representatives of all the many and diverse stakeholders in the United States to work toward a resolution of national standards, protocols and priorities that will assure the right information is delivered in a timely manner to people at risk from disaster, be it natural or people induced, so that they are enabled to act knowledgeably to save lives, reduce losses and speed recovery.
http://www.partnershipforpublicwarning.org/

The Tampere Convention on the Provision of Telecommunication Resources for Disaster Mitigation and Relief Operations. The Convention was unanimously adopted by the delegations of the 60 States participating in the Intergovernmental Conference on Emergency Telecommunications (ICET-98), hosted by the Government of Finland in Tampere, Finland, 16-18 June 1998.
http://www.reliefweb.int/telecoms/tampere/

Samarajiva, Rohan. (2001, Nov. 16). Disaster Preparedness and Recovery: A Priority fo Telecom Regulatory Agencies in Liberalized Environments. Paper presented at the ITU Telecom Africa 2001 Policy & Development Summit, Johannesburg, South Africa. Retrieved, from http://www.itu.int/TELECOM/aft2001/cfp/auth/4858/pap_4858.pdf

Harbi, Mohamed. (2001, Nov. 16). Disaster Mitigation via Telecommunications: The Tampere Convention. Paper presented at the ITU Telecom Africa 2001 Policy & Development Summit, Johannesburg, South Africa. Retrieved, from http://www.itu.int/TELECOM/aft2001/cfp/auth/4860/pap_4860.pdf

The CAP: What, Why and How - The Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) is an open, non-proprietary standard data interchange format that can be used to collect all types of hazard warnings and reports locally, regionally and nationally, for input into a wide range of information-management and warning dissemination systems. This website includes working documents on emerging standards, demo applications, asnd resources.
http://www.incident.com/cap/


The Cellular Emergency Advisory Service Association (CEASA) is a citizens action initiative, a not for profit group. Originally formed in the US, the international chapter creates a harmonised international channel coding scheme which enables international and cross border use of cell broadcasting, in a multi-ligual environment.
Cell Broadcasting (CB) is an existing function of most modern digital mobile phone systems, such as GSM UMTS and CDMA. It differs from SMS in that, while it does put text messages on the screen of the phone, (like SMS does), it does this to 'all-at-once 'and not one-at-a-time as SMS does.
http://www.ceasa-int.org/

Text message broadcasts could provide disaster alerts - an article by the New Scientist news service about cell broadcasting.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6852

Canada's Public Alert programme seeks to draw attention to new and existing devices providing direct access to government emergency information 24-hours-a-day, with the ability to automatically prompt users with various types of audio and visual cues. The products are sophisticated enough to recognize specific alerts for specific geographic regions, while monitoring emergency conditions at the provincial and national levels. Public alert devices often double as radio receivers or other consumer electronics. In times of emergency, they can be remotely turned on to sound an alarm to alert and even wake up people. They then remain on providing emergency informatoion over regular broadcast frequencies.
http://www.msc.ec.gc.ca/msb/weatheradio/public_alert_e.cfm

Srivastava, Leena and Samarajiva, Rohan. (2001, June 27-29, 2001). Regulatory design for disaster preparedness and recovery by infrastructure providers: South Asian experience. Paper presented at the Fifth International Conference on Technology, Policy and Innovation, The Hague, Netherlands. Retrieved, from http://www.delft2001.tudelft.nl/

Bibliographies

Relief Web bibliography on policy and regulatory aspects of emergency telecommunications.
http://www.reliefweb.int/telecoms/policy/index.html

Relief Web annotated bibliography on emergency telecommunications. This extensive bibliography doesn't appear to have been updated since 1999 but it has hundreds of references.
http://www.reliefweb.int/telecoms/biblio/biblio.html

References for the article Emergency Telecommunications and Mitigation-Oriented Policymaking by Gordon Gow. Published on the World Dialogue on Regulation website.

Abstracts and papers of the Technical University of Delft's 5th International Conference on Technology, Policy and Innovation are available online at http://www.delft2001.tudelft.nl/

News articles

BBC News - Text messages aid disaster recovery - Text messaging technology was a valuable communication tool in the aftermath of the tsunami disaster in Asia.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4149977.stm

CNN - Internet aids tsunami recovery - The Internet has played an unprecedented role supplying aid, money and information in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunamis.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/01/05/tech.tsunami/index.html