Berlin What if, in the near future, there was a power outage across the board, if there was a natural disaster like the 2021 flood in the Ahr Valley, or if a heat wave paralyzed data centers? What if important products for the telecommunications networks can no longer be imported, central access points to the Internet fail and cloud services or even the entire Internet in Europe can no longer be reached? What should be done in the event of sabotage, cyber attacks or even a nuclear attack? In times of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, nothing can be ruled out.
In order to be prepared for the threat scenarios, telecommunications companies will have to invest far more in the security of their networks in the near future than in the past. This emerges from the draft for a “Strategy Paper: Resilience of Telecommunications Networks”. The 21-page paper is available to the Handelsblatt.
The officials of the Federal Network Agency created it together with the Federal Office for Information Security and the four major network operators Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone, Telefónica and 1&1 as well as the industry associations. They discussed all the crisis scenarios that threaten critical infrastructure and tried to agree on precautionary measures.
“Today and in the future, there is a need for resilient telecommunications networks and extensive emergency and security concepts,” it says right at the beginning. It is not even a question of whether essential components, for example from the Chinese provider Huawei, should still be installed in German mobile and fixed networks. Cleaning the nets is considered nearly impossible and would take years. The paper focuses primarily on the power supply and dual network structures.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
Neither the landline nor the mobile network works without electricity. According to information from industry circles in the Handelsblatt, companies have neglected the emergency supply of their networks for economic reasons in recent decades. This includes, for example, having sufficient emergency power generators available. According to the strategy paper, there are “only very few technology locations” of network operators with permanently installed emergency power solutions. These are “only operational for a limited time”.
In the Moosburg area, the power supply was temporarily interrupted in June after a storm.
(Photo: dpa)
What consequences this can have was shown, for example, by the Ahr flood a year ago. The power went out there with the flood – and shortly afterwards the mobile phone networks were also paralysed. As a consequence, a few weeks later, the digital minister of Rhineland-Palatinate, Alexander Schweitzer (SPD), called on the federal government to build the new network “exclusively on sustainable, redundant and resilient infrastructures”.
Crisis managers demand redundant networks
The disaster had been investigated on behalf of the state governments in Mainz and North Rhine-Westphalia by the Honorary President of the Federal Agency for Technical Relief, Albrecht Broemme. Already at the end of February he demanded in the Handelsblatt: “Anyone who plans strategically thinks about a fallback level. And if you’re really clever, you can even consider a second and third fallback level, according to the motto: suspenders, belt, hands in your pockets.” -Investment idea”, as the 68-year-old said. “We need a resilient network.”
As can be seen from the strategy paper, the network operators should ensure a “basic network” in the future. With it, people should be able to make emergency calls and receive warning messages on their mobile phones (cell broadcast technology). Even simple internet services should be able to continue to be used by everyone. In order to ensure this, “important grid infrastructure should be equipped with emergency power systems and technology for uninterrupted power supply”. For example, renewable energies such as photovoltaic modules, which generate electricity independently, are to be used more intensively.
The proposal to create double data lines in order to redirect data traffic to other connections if necessary is likely to be far more expensive. “The state should make agreements with the network operators to set up parallel infrastructures and, in this context, also clarify the question of the costs to be borne,” the document says.
The experts recommend not only considering double structures between network nodes and operators, but also several lines in the households. “Although parallel infrastructures right up to the end consumer cause higher investments for the network operators, they also lead to more competition and at the same time more resilient structures.” The experts also recommend better protecting the systems against attacks and elementary damage.
Implementing the measures will “entail considerable costs and may also require the adjustment of the legal framework”. Another requirement is, for example, that telecommunications networks should continue to be supplied as a matter of priority in a “power shortage”.
A Situation and Response Center – “manned 24 hours a day”
To ensure all this, network operators, service providers, associations and the Federal Network Agency propose setting up “a joint situation and reaction center”. There they should be able to practice crises on a regular basis and also be able to exchange confidential information. Smaller network operators and operators of so-called 5G campus networks – real-time mobile networks on company premises or at universities – should also take part in the exercises. In view of the risk of large-scale cyber attacks, the situation center should be “manned around the clock by employees from the relevant network operators and authorities”.
As the paper states, the proposals are primarily aimed at the Federal Ministry of Transport. Laws must be changed and it must also be clarified whether the taxpayer or the consumer ultimately bears the additional costs for security. In the “gigabit strategy”, which the federal cabinet is to adopt next week, there is nothing concrete about all of this. The ministry refers to the Federal Network Agency’s paper, which is in the works. It will only present “recommendations for action” in the second quarter of 2023.
Rather, the gigabit strategy focuses on connecting all households to the fiber optic network by 2030 and building the new 5G mobile network everywhere. The paper also devotes several pages to mobile communications in trains and on railway lines.
The federal and state governments had been arguing for months, not about security issues, but about how they want to promote network expansion in the future. The previous funding from the previous government should essentially be retained and optimised. The federal government wants to accelerate the expansion via digital approval processes. Corresponding pilot projects are being set up in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate. However, experts doubt whether they can be used across the board as planned in 2023. A federal-state working group recently found that most of the administration’s digitization projects will be delayed.
More: Agreement in the Chancellery – Digital Minister Wissing must share power and money