ICT are a key infrastructure to establish economic and social systems in the present age. The Great East Japan Earthquake made a hard impact to ICT facilities that was difficult to continue communication services in the disaster area. Suspension of communication service made difficult to bind victims and supporters. Victims is difficult to share with supporters to need help. And Supporters is difficult to get the situation inside the disaster area. It is critical issue to provide right support from supporters to victims. On March 25, 2011, we founded "Pdrnet project: Post Disaster Recovery Internet Project" and provided satellite-based communication system to over 50 shelters in Sanriku coast area. I address the importance of communication service continuity even collapsed ICT facilities in a disaster area based on knowledge from this project activities.

1. The importance of connecting stability:
Lesson of ICT disaster recovery activities in the Great East Japan Earthquake
Masafumi OE <masa@fumi.org>
National Astronomical Observatory of Japan
French – Japanese Workshop on Satellite Communications for Disaster Management and Emergency
in Embassy of France in Japan, Apr. 24, 2013
2013/4/24 1M.OE

2. 2013/4/24 2
Rikuzentakata
Temporally hospital, Iwate
in March 24, 2011
Satellite phone x 2
(No Internet )
Satellite Internet is for offloading communications
Satellite phones are using for receiving Emergency call
M.OE

3. 3
K-Wave, Kesenuma, Miyagi
March 25, 2011
Rikuzentakata Dai1-Chugakkou, Iwate
May, 2011
2013/4/24
Watching Tunami video on Youtube
Playing online game
Shifting purposes / users / bandwidth requirement for the Internet
From rescue use To entertainment use.
From Kbps order To Mbps order
From restricted user only To all M.OE

4. Post-Disaster Recovery Internet (PDR) Project
• From 2011.3.15, private-public partnership Internet volunteer project in
order to provide the Internet connectivity in the disaster area
• Teamed up with satellite communications companies, ICT industries, Universities
and research institutes.
• Cisco Systems, IPSTAR, SKY Perfect JSAT, Fusion communications, Intel, etc
• National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, KEIO Univ.
• Provided the first-aid temporally ICT kit to the disaster area.
• Our ICT first aid kit was composed of permanent commercial Internet connectivity
service and cost effective and stable products.
2013/4/24 4M.OE

5. Kesenuma city
Rikuzentakata city
March, 2011
Ofunato city
Yamada town
Otuchi town
April, 2011
May – June, 2011
Miyako city
Ishinomaki city
Kamaishi city
Wakuya town
Onagawa town
Sumida town
Minamisanriku town
July - , 2011
Deploying area
5
• We’re supported a total of 53 sites in the end of July,
2011.
• Service was continuing until the end of Feb., 2012.
• We mainly supported in Sanriku coast area where
needs time to recover than downtown area.
• Our supported sites were accepted on information
from the local governments, NTT-East, and phone /
face –to- face survey.
2013/4/24 M.OE

6. 53カ所の展開地区 地区 設置場所名称
宮古市
Miyako
グリーンピア三陸宮古
赤前小学校・仮設住宅
山田町
Yamada
山田町役場
B&G海洋センター
青少年の家
南小学校/さくら幼稚園/武徳殿
大沢 小学校
大沢 ふるさとセンター
山田高校
織笠コミュニティ
織笠保育園
船越保育園
船越防災センター
大浦漁村センター
大浦保育園
豊間根中学校
豊間根中学校格技上
豊間根 保育園
豊間根 生活改善センター
大槌町 Otsuchi 大槌高等学校
釜石市 Kamaishi 栗林小学校
大船渡市
Ofunato
大船渡市役所
カメリアホール
総合福祉会館
大船渡市三陸支所
設置場所名称 地区
陸前高田第一中学校・仮設
陸前高田市
Rikuzentakata
高田病院(米崎CC)
長部小学校
オートキャンプ場モビリア
小泉中学
SaveTakata 住田町 Sumida
総合体育館
気仙沼市
Kesennuma
唐桑総合支所
はまなすの丘
階下小学校
階下公民館
志津川中学校
南三陸町
Minamisanriku
ニュー泊崎荘
志津川高等学校
入谷小学校
荻浜中学校
石巻市
Ishinomaki
荻浜小学校
大須中学校
大須小学校
遊学館
北上中学校
湊小学校
牡鹿保健センター
牡鹿病院
石巻ロイヤル病院
涌谷町研修館
涌谷町
Wakuya
海泉閣 女川町Onagawa 6
Logistic support site
Iwate prefectural office building, Morioka city
NAOJ Mizusawa Observatory, Ohsyu city
Mediaship, Ishinomaki city
and more
Supported sites
2013/4/24 M.OE

7. Introduction of our ICT First Aid kit (1)
Cisco Systems Cisco 1941
with W-CDMA 3G connection
IPstar VSAT
4Mbps/2Mbps
JSAT ExBird VSAT
4Mbps/800Kbps
Internet
Sattelite
3G
Any way to the Internet
ADSL/Optical network
Long reach / Multi-hop
Wi-Fi7
PC and Printers
74cm dish
84cm dish
No professional person was in change on the
site during operation term.
-Fully remotely monitoring and operation
2013/4/24 M.OE

8. Introduction of our ICT First Aid kit (2)
Service
Provider
IPstar JSAT ExBird JSAT ExBird Imarsat
BGAN
(Cisco 1941 IP router with 3G
module ) /
Total System
Weight
35Kg
including counter weight
30Kg
including counter
weight
15Kg 3kg 4Kg
Unit price 30万円( 3000 US$) 50万円 ( 5000US$ ) ? 45万円( 4500US$) 15万円 ( 1500US$)
Service
Bandwidth
2Mbps-4Mbps
(Data volume limited)
-4Mbps -4Mbps -492Kbps -2Mbps (Depending on W-CDMA
network service quality)
2013/4/24 8M.OE

9. Example
Dish Satellite modem
IP Router
2 Pair (TX/RX)
5C Coaxial Cables
WiFi Access point
with PoE
Free Wi-Fi Service
SSID: The-Internet
2013/4/24 Deploying Wi-Fi APs in the shelterM.OE 9

10. 3G or Satellite? : Actual service status on NTT DoCoMo
3G(W-CDMA)
NTT DoCoMo 3G service in KESENNUMA CITY AREA
Location
K-Wave
(Shelter)
Karakura
City office
Hamanasuno-oka
(Shelter)
Band 800MHz 2100MHz 800MHz 2100MHz 800MHz 2100MHz
2/24 ○*) ？ ×
3/26 × ○ ×→○ × ？
3/27 ○ ○ ◎ ？
3/28 ？ ○ ◎ △
3/29 ？ ○ ？ ？ △ ×
3/30 ○ ○ ◎ × △
3/31 ？ ？ ◎ ？ △ ×
◎：Service available ○：Service available in outside △：Service
unstable ×：NOT in service ？：unknown
2013/4/24
3G data service was unstable in
some area / time / date.
-Actual bandwidth on 3G was
unstable from 120Kbps up to
2Mbps depending on network
congestion, radio coverage area
and service band.
-Actual bandwidth on satellite
was stable.
We provided VSAT system to
the site when 3G service was
not in service or unstable.
M.OE 10

11. Traffic trend
http
34%
ipsec
28%
secure-http
18%
youtube
6%
dns
4%
skype
3%
bittorrent
2% Others
5%
Traffic trend based on actual amount of traffic
2013/4/24 11M.OE

12. Unbalance support in the disaster area
• Support resources had been concentrated to shelters /
victims that said “I need a help!”.
• No say then no help.
• Case example in Rikuzentakata city
• Victims in the shelter made active use of sharing information
with supporters.
• using mass media such as TV, newspaper, radio and etc.
• using Blog, SNS, and etc on the Internet.
Ensure rapid and efficient support from personal/ private company / NGO etc..
• If not, it’s quite different.
Receiving basically support from the local government.
This situation was not changed from Great Hanshin
earthquake(‘95)
• In Great Hanshin earthquake, Support resources was concentrated to the
shelters which were put out the information on Mass Media.
• In this disaster, it are Mass Media and Internet.
12
Support resources
Supports
2013/4/24
Shelter
Other shelters
M.OE

13. Usage and service recovery from the event
• Recovering status
was depended in
the area / carrier.
• When service was
not recovered
until the end of
May, more time to
recover was
needed.3 Days1 Day
Suspended Mobile service due to outage of
emergency power
Deadline for stating medical and
food support
Suspended Public service
Telephone, Mobile, Internet
Electrical Power, Water, Gus
2 Week
Highway and major roads were opened to
the traffic.
Partial recovery Logistics and public
transportation in the private sector
Materials and Personnel for recovery
process were changing to the disaster area.
Damaged
Communication cost is
increase significantly.
=>It was difficult to share
Valuable information such as
life-support request, Shelter
location, safety confirmation,
and etc.,
Starting
recovering work
Road, Power,
Communication ware
temporally and
limited recovery.
Communication cost
is decreasing.
From Recover to
Reconstruction
Time
the Impact
InServicearea
Mobile service recovered with temporary
base stations.
Patch with satellite and microwave network
Temporary recovered
-Mobile network
-Optical network
-Communication facility
132013/4/24 M.OE

14. ICT Requirements under the disaster
•Technology for providing communication service to any victims in
the disaster area for 3 days after the impact is very important.
• Satellite communication is potential technology.
• Many activities using satellite system in this disaster proofed Satellite communication is usable.
•Usable example
• Patch connection
• Satellite network is usable for patching terrestrial networks.
• Internet connection
• Many users were shared the network
2013/4/24 14M.OE

15. ICT Requirements under the disaster
• More Bandwidth!
• Kbps bandwidth was not fitting for current rich communication even smart phone / tablet
devices.
• Mbps bandwidth is required.
• Service sustainability
• We feel fortunate that some commercial satellite Internet services and Experimental
communication satellite such as ETS-8(KIKU-8) and WINDS are in service.
• Satellite communication service business in truck is very important.
• Consume budgets from Governments for Experimental satellite?  X
• It’s not sustainable.
• Sat terminal for experimental satellite is expensive in general.
• Needs Technology transfer scenarios from Experimental to Commercial service.
• Low-cost and mobile satellite terminal is key factor for spread possibility.
• It will be usable communication tool from the impact.
• Deploy mobile terminal to shelters.
• Under Limited power / logistics / manpower resources
• Open protocol / Long-life service architecture design
2013/4/24 15M.OE

16. Thank you
Masafumi OE < masa@fumi.org >
NAOJ
2-21-1 OSAWA, Mitaka, Tokyo, Japan 181-8588.
+81-422-34-3565
2013/4/24 16M.OE