Survivable Network Planning at AT&T Bell Laboratories

The process of planning survivable networks for government crltical communications using Public Switched Telephone Network facilities and services is presented. Requirement specification, feasibility studies, database maintenance, damage assessment, network design, performance evaluation, and Implementation planning are discussed as they relate to government agencies with communications needs during national crisis, such as massive nuclear attack on the United States. The emphasis of this paper is on the network realization process with a focus on key concepts used In emergency networking applications.