June 16, 2004

AT&T announces it will conduct a two-day network disaster recovery exercise (DRE) starting Tuesday in Long Beach, California. The state is well-known for its earthquakes and its wild forest fires.

This DRE exercise is conducted to test and evaluate the company's efficiency and speed in responding to a stimulated disaster that 'destroys' a Southern California area data-routing and voice-switching center.

The DRE exercise, conducted several times each year, is a part of AT&T's comprehensive business continuity plan to ensure communications can be restored quickly to its government, business and consumer clients if a disaster damages or destroys parts of its network.

As the industry's only mobile, full-readiness network disaster recovery team, the DRE program allows AT&T to monitor, manage and proactively protect customers' networks worldwide. The company has invested more than $300 million into the program during the past 10 years.

Industry studies over the past decade estimate that 80 to 90 percent of businesses without efficient disaster recovery plans go out of business in two to five years after a major disaster.

However, a new AT&T commissioned study done by Opinion Research Corp., which solely focused on Los-Angeles area businesses, found that 35 percent of companies surveyed do not have a disaster recovery plan in place, and 20 percent have been impacted by a disaster that forced them to cease operations for a period of time.

The DRE team has been activated 12 times since 1990, including restoring service following the September 11 (9/11) attacks and the Oklahoma tornadoes in 1999.

AT&T will follow up on its DRE exercise with a Networking Leaders' Forum today in Long Beach, bringing together AT&T executives, business customers, and outside experts to discuss the latest trends in business continuity and disaster recovery.

Source: The WHIR