MANILA, JUNE 20, 2013 – Globe Telecom has announced that it is joining an earthquake-preparedness workshop in Legazpi City, Albay, that is organised by the GSM Association (GSMA), comprised of some 800 mobile operators in more than 220 countries around the world.
This workshop is being conducted as part of the GSMA Disaster Response Program, which, this time, focuses on the threat of earthquakes. Many areas in the region, including some in countries such as the Philippines, have been identified as earthquake-prone, and as such suffer loss of life and often significant damage to property yearly.
The event is to be participated in by local mobile network operators as well as a range of both Philippine and international bodies including the Philippine National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHILVOCS), the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and other partners. The event serves as a venue for these participants to share knowledge, case studies and best practices, as well as explore opportunities for partnerships and create a community of practice within the operator community.
Sessions will tackle earthquake risk overview as well as implications for mobile operators; technical strategies and best practices concerning network resilience and management during earthquakes; mobile operators as frontline responders; and establishing effective partnerships before earthquakes strike.
Edgar Hapa, Globe Enterprise Business Continuity Director, said that Globe is well aware of the importance of telecom services during and after disasters, and as a major player in the telecommunication industry, it must work to ensure that it avoids operational disruption whether in normal conditions or during or after emergencies and disasters.
Hapa added that the company’s mission-critical systems, as well as its entire network infrastructure are designed for resiliency, achieved through both redundant components and through maintenance of disaster-recovery sites such as its IT data centers, which have been located geographically distant from one another in order to reduce the likelihood of system-wide service outages. Additionally, Globe’s IT systems have also been appropriated to ensure business continuity and the firm’s disaster recovery platform and processes tested regularly.
Globe is the first Philippine telecoms firm to have been certified as company-wide compliant with an international business-continuity standard.
