Design and Deployment of Post-Disaster Recovery Internet in 2011 Tohoku Earthquake

Kotaro KATAOKA  Keisuke UEHARA  Masafumi OE  Jun MURAI 

Publication
IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Communications  Vol.E95-B  No.7  pp.2200-2209
Publication Date: 2012/07/01
Online ISSN: 1745-1345
Print ISSN: 0916-8516
Type of Manuscript: Special Section PAPER (Special Section on Future Internet Technologies against Present Crises)
Category: 
Keyword: 
post-disaster networking,  Internet,  deployment, 

Full Text: PDF(8MB)

Summary: 
In disaster sites of 2011 Tohoku Earthquake, digital communication was virtually unavailable due to the serious damage to the existing Internet and ICT resources. Thus there were urgent demands for recovering the Internet connectivity and first aid communication tools. This paper describes the design and deployment of networking systems that provide Internet connectivity using 3G mobile links or VSAT satellite links. In this paper we examine two approaches for post-disaster networking: quickly deployable package and on-demand networking. Based on a comparison of their characteristics and deployment experiences, this paper tries to extract lessons that contribute to improving the preparedness to another disaster. This paper also shares our significant operational experience acquired through supporting a maximum of 54 sites in Tohoku area including evacuation shelters, temporary hospitals and local government offices.