Telecommunications

Abstract

The telecommunication network is a key critical infrastructure in any modern society. Any protracted loss of the ability for key personnel to communicate will inevitably lead to the complete collapse of that society. This chapter discusses many security and reliability concerns associated with the operation and maintenance of the telecommunications infrastructure. Telecommunications is a unique infrastructure in that other critical infrastructures are increasingly dependent on telecommunications as well as telecommunications itself being a critical infrastructure that serves many crucial needs such as Public Safety, communications for restoral of critical services, and informing the public regarding emergency situations. In this chapter we define the architecture of the next generation telecommunications network, and describe types of infrastructure failures that need to be prevented or at least minimized. In terms of protection schemes, we explain the different mechanisms that operate at different layers within the network. Particular emphasis is placed on the ability of the network to detect, isolate and resolve service impacting abnormalities. Thus, the network can restore itself to some level of operation and to maintain critical services for specified users, even when the network is degraded owing to internal or external failures or overload conditions.