Mobility: A nation under siege - An insight into mobile communications during the 2006 Lebanon conflict

Additionally, its local operation - MTC Touch - shares its experiences of the difficulties it faced and how it went about maintaining the network.

The findings of the report deliver striking insight and valuable lessons on the role that reliable and robust mobile communications infrastructure now plays in crisis situations which extend beyond the Lebanese conflict itself.

The report is split into three sections:

1. The interoperability of mobile communications during the crisis

- Scope for standard techniques of network management to alleviate congestion even after serious damage
- Speed of network recovery thanks to the nature of mobile infrastructure
- Varying behaviours of mobile customers relative to payment methods

2. Use of Mobiles during the conflict

- Role of mobiles in facing daily problems of war
- SMS usage for receiving news and circulating video footage
- How medical advice was dispensed across region by phone
- How propaganda was disseminated by both sides using SMS

3. Response to network damage during the war

- How the operator managed to maintain the network without much needed equipment
- How staff risked their lives to maintain the integrity of the network
- How the local operator improvised to use land-based infrastructure to re-connect the cellular grid following bombing

Other general insights within the report include the following:

• Mobile phones played a vital role in communications during the Lebanon conflict of July-August 2006

• Call volumes jumped by almost 40% in the immediate aftermath of the outbreak of hostilities

• Mobiles proved essential in keeping people in touch during the massive movement of people from the south of the country to other regions and overseas.

• Mobile users heavily utilised SMS news services to receive updates on the security situation, with 3 out of 5 users taking out subscriptions for news updates, while they were able to exchange images by means of telephone based video cameras

• Network congestion proved especially problematic, amid a high influx of propaganda based messaging issued by various political groups

• Network interruption is now used as a bell-weather for causing alertness within the geography

• Call volumes fell almost 60% in the south and increased elsewhere.

• Call patterns also show the role played by mobiles in allowing Lebanese people overseas to stay in touch with friends and family during the conflict: the volume of these roaming calls reached a peak 85% higher than the average for the months before July

• The increase in demand, coupled with damage to the network due to bombing, led to a sharp increase in call congestion, but this was relatively short lived. Re-routing of traffic and repairs and new investment took measures of congestion back towards their pre-war levels within a few weeks.

• Calls from mobiles to the emergency services not surprisingly jumped on several days. There was also a dramatic surge in subscriptions to an SMS news service for the duration of the war.

• Within a very short period of the ceasefire, the earlier trends of growth in use of SMS and voice calls seemed to have been resumed, which is particularly impressive in view of the movement of substantial numbers of people and the physical damage sustained by the network.

• The patterns of mobile use in Lebanon during the summer of 2006 confirm the finding from other emergencies of the importance to individuals of access to communication provided by mobiles, and the resilience of the network compared to other parts of the communications infrastructure.

• The contribution of mobile in Lebanon during this period occurred despite the country's relatively low mobile penetration rate and high call charges. An important policy question going forward will be how to ensure most effectively the spread of mobile use through the population.