The Turks and Caicos Islands Telecommunications Commission (TCTC) has successfully completed its Emergency Preparedness Agreement (EPA) between the Islands’ network operators, Digicel and Flow, with support from Cenerva.
The EPA marks the final stage of the TCTC Telecommunications Emergency Preparedness and Response Policy (TEPRP), the aim of which is to mitigate the risk of disruption to communications networks and services in the event of a disaster or emergency.
TCI is located in the Caribbean region, which is frequently affected by hurricanes and has historically experienced significant damage to the telecommunications infrastructure. As a result, the Government of TCI and the Commission have spearheaded the creation of an effective policy that would safeguard the resilience of emergency and other priority calls during times of emergency.
The Emergency Preparedness Agreement (EPA) is a legal document that encompasses an emergency-activated telecommunications network capacity backup plan. It covers implementation measures that will be in place in times of national emergencies, including those resulting from severe weather events.
This Agreement provides a framework to formalize the role of all network operators, specifically, how they will work with other stakeholders and partners to maintain mobile and internet services for specific groups during a declared period of national emergency.
The provisions included in this Agreement are primarily to enable the TCI Government, emergency services, appointed third parties and relief agencies to coordinate appropriate disaster response and humanitarian efforts, disseminate emergency information messages, and manage logistics to help rebuild national infrastructure.
