A communications failure plan for when mobile and internet go down

Networks rarely vanish all at once. In a flood, a storm or a long power cut you are more likely to see slow data, then failed calls, then sites going dark as local power and batteries run out. A crowded incident can clog a healthy network too. The danger lies in the gap before anyone agrees that the network has failed, while each team waits for a message that will not arrive.

So the plan needs a trigger as well as a backup. In the preparedness cycle you write it during PREPARE and rehearse it during TRAIN, and it pays off in ADAPT, when conditions change and everyone moves to the prepared alternative. For the term itself, see PACE plan.

A rally point is the answer to “where do I go if I hear nothing?” Choose one per sector, plus one for the whole team, somewhere that stays reachable in the expected hazard: above the flood line, walkable, and easy to describe without a map. Give each a name, a grid reference and a named person who goes there.

Timed check-ins turn silence into information. Agree in advance that every team reports at fixed times, say at ten past each hour.

• Missed one check-in: control notes it and tries the next layer.
• Missed two: control sends a runner or a vehicle to the last known position.
• A team that has lost contact goes to its rally point at the next half hour and waits 20 minutes.
• Everyone with no instructions by a fixed hour returns to base.

A runner is a person on foot, bike or vehicle carrying a written message, and it still works when nothing else does. Prepare a pad with five fields: from, to, time, message, reply needed. Have the runner read it back, and record when it left and when it was delivered. Send runners in pairs at night or in floodwater, and give them a route and a return time. A team of 20 can usually spare two, so name them before the day.

Radios cannot send a map, so the data has to be on the device or on paper before the network fails. Everything below should be available with no signal.

• Offline maps of the whole area, with sectors and rally points.
• The plan, its alternatives and the conditions that trigger each one.
• Contact list, radio channels and call signs, on paper too.
• Task list and checklists for the role.
• A power bank, and a paper copy of anything that would stop work if a phone died.

In Great Britain the police, fire and ambulance services use Airwave, which the government describes as restricted to a closed community of responders, with other organisations able to use it only through Ofcom’s Sharers’ List. Its planned replacement, the Emergency Services Network, is still being delivered: the July 2026 summary business case aims to shut Airwave down when it is safe to do so and gives no date. JESIP’s principles put communication at the core of joint working, and its Airwave test regime exists to keep commanders familiar with multi-agency talkgroups.

The Mobile Telecommunications Privileged Access Scheme (MTPAS) helps those who are eligible when networks are congested. It relies on a special SIM, is limited to organisations with a part in the response and to staff with an operational role at the scene, and is usually arranged through the Telecoms Sub-Group of the Local Resilience Forum. It will not help if a mast has lost power.

For everyone else, the realistic fallback is licence-exempt PMR446 handhelds: short range, shared channels and no privacy, so keep names and medical details off the air. RAYNET-UK, a charity of licensed radio amateurs formed after the 1953 East Coast floods, offers voluntary communications to local responders. Build the relationship before you need it.

Sinkaos apps work offline: messages, reports, incidents, tasks, map edits and tracks are created on the device and sent when possible, and a local field server can run an operation with no internet. On poor links, store and forward sends critical text and alerts first, and plan alternatives with their decision rules travel offline. It needs some kind of link to pass data between devices, so keep radios and runners in your plan. See offline maps.