And if the disaster is an Electromagnetic Pulse?

[River Song]

In the event of an emergency, access to the mobile network will be essentially withdrawn for us civvies.

The official plans read as follows:

Mobile telephony Priority Access scheme (MtPAs)
This is the authorised scheme whereby the mobile telephony service providers can, in the event of a major incident, limit access to their respective networks and permit emergency services, local authorities and other users with suitably enabled mobile telephones to have exclusive access to available channels.

This facility is expensive to implement and can cause inconvenience to other responders, such as Transport for London. It should only be initiated after careful consideration and on the authority of Police Gold. In an extreme or urgent situation Police Silver may request the implementation of MTPAS.

The system works by using MTPAS enabled SIM cards. The SIM cards are supplied by the respective service providers. Individual emergency service organisations should consult their own policy in relation to the numbers of MTPAS enabled telephones they can obtain. As a guide each organisation should take into consideration key posts to be supplied with MTPAS enabled SIM cards.

It should be noted that the Cabinet Office is the authorising body for MTPAS registration and the number allowed on the scheme is strictly limited to preserve its operational benefits.

These notes are from London's "Major Incident Procedure Manual" which I will post soon


RS