Business Continuity Management for Telecommunications Networks Training Course

Course overview

Telecommunications networks must remain available through power loss, fibre cuts, cyber incidents, extreme weather, supplier failure and loss of critical sites. For network operators, service providers and infrastructure partners, a disruption can quickly affect emergency calling, enterprise SLAs, regulatory obligations, field operations and public confidence. This course equips participants to build and test continuity arrangements that protect essential network services while restoring capacity in a controlled, evidence-based sequence.

Participants learn to apply ISO 22301 business continuity principles to telecom operations, from defining critical services and maximum tolerable periods of disruption to mapping dependencies across RAN, transport, core, OSS/BSS, data centres, NOCs, power systems and third-party suppliers. They conduct business impact analysis, assess continuity risks, set recovery time and recovery point objectives, develop service recovery strategies, and create practical incident-to-recovery plans. Particular attention is given to network resilience, alternate routing, site access, spares, emergency power, cyber recovery and stakeholder communications.

The five-day programme uses telecom disruption scenarios, facilitated planning workshops and structured tabletop exercises. Participants work with BIA worksheets, dependency maps, recovery strategy decision matrices, invocation checklists and exercise evaluation forms. By the end of the course, each participant produces a telecom business continuity plan pack for a selected network service or operational area, including priorities, recovery targets, roles, escalation routes, resource requirements and a test schedule that can be adapted for workplace use.

The course is designed for professionals who already work with telecom networks, operations, resilience, risk, safety, security or supplier management and need a disciplined method for assuring continuity beyond routine fault restoration.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Conduct a telecom business impact analysis using service criticality, MTPD, RTO and RPO criteria
• Map dependencies between network services, physical sites, power systems, OSS/BSS platforms and third-party suppliers
• Assess continuity risks using disruption scenarios covering fibre damage, power failure, cyberattack and site loss
• Set recovery priorities and recovery objectives for RAN, transport, core network and customer-facing services
• Select recovery strategies using a cost, capability, resilience and residual-risk decision matrix
• Develop a telecom business continuity plan with activation triggers, roles, communications and recovery actions
• Design and facilitate a tabletop exercise for a major network outage or multi-site service disruption
• Create an annual continuity testing, maintenance and improvement schedule aligned to ISO 22301

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Network Operations Managers — who must sustain priority services and coordinate restoration during major outages
• Business Continuity Managers — who need to translate ISO 22301 requirements into telecom-specific recovery arrangements
• Telecommunications Engineers — who design resilience across radio, transport, core, power and site infrastructure
• NOC and Service Assurance Managers — who manage incident escalation, customer impact and operational communications
• Risk, HSE and Resilience Professionals — who assess operational disruption risks affecting critical communications services
• Supplier and Vendor Managers — who need continuity evidence and recovery commitments from network infrastructure providers

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have working familiarity with telecommunications operations, such as network service delivery, NOC processes, field maintenance, infrastructure management or operational risk. They should understand basic network terms including RAN, transmission, core network, data centre, service outage and escalation, and be comfortable reading process maps or incident records. Prior experience with continuity planning, ISO 22301, formal risk assessment or tabletop exercises is helpful but not required. No programming, network configuration, specialist resilience software or prior certification is required. Participants should bring a laptop if attending live online or if they wish to complete planning templates electronically.

Training methodology

Instructor-led sessions connect continuity management principles directly to telecom operating environments, using examples from mobile, fixed, transmission and data-centre services. Participants analyse outage reports, build dependency maps, complete BIA and recovery-strategy templates, and make prioritisation decisions in small groups. Facilitated case studies cover fibre cuts, prolonged power loss, cyber compromise and loss of a critical network site. Each day closes with an applied workshop, culminating in a tabletop exercise and individual action plan for implementing or improving continuity arrangements in the participant's organisation.

Course outline

Day 1: Telecom continuity foundations and service criticality

• ISO 22301 lifecycle applied to telecommunications network operations
• Critical service identification across mobile, fixed, enterprise and emergency communications
• Distinction between incident management, disaster recovery and business continuity management
• Maximum tolerable period of disruption and service-impact tolerance
• Telecom service catalogue and criticality classification criteria
• Governance roles for network operations, crisis management and executive decision-making
• Regulatory, customer SLA and public-safety continuity obligations

Workshop: Participants classify a sample telecom service portfolio and produce a ranked critical-service register with disruption tolerances.

Day 2: Business impact analysis and dependency mapping

• Business impact analysis interview design for network and support functions
• RTO, RPO and minimum business continuity objective setting
• Dependency mapping across RAN, transport, core, OSS/BSS and data centres
• Critical site, tower, exchange and point-of-presence dependency analysis
• Power, fuel, cooling, spares and field-access dependencies
• Third-party carrier, cloud, managed-service and equipment-vendor dependencies
• BIA validation through service-owner challenge sessions

Workshop: Participants complete a BIA worksheet and dependency map for a selected mobile or fixed-network service.

Day 3: Risk assessment and recovery strategy design

• Telecom disruption scenario analysis for fibre cuts, site loss and grid failure
• Cyberattack and ransomware recovery considerations for network management systems
• Likelihood-impact assessment and continuity risk treatment selection
• Alternate routing, capacity reallocation and graceful service degradation strategies
• Backup power, generator fuel autonomy and mobile-site recovery options
• Work-area recovery and loss-of-control-centre response arrangements
• Recovery strategy decision matrices using cost, feasibility and residual-risk criteria

Workshop: Participants evaluate three recovery options for a regional outage and produce a justified recovery-strategy recommendation.

Day 4: Plan development, activation and communications

• Business continuity plan structure for telecom services and operational teams
• Plan activation thresholds, authority levels and escalation pathways
• Network recovery runbooks, checklists and decision logs
• Crisis communications for regulators, customers, employees and media teams
• Supplier continuity coordination and contractual recovery commitments
• Resource mobilisation for field teams, spares, fuel and specialist access
• Document control, plan ownership and controlled distribution

Workshop: Participants draft an activation-and-recovery section of a telecom continuity plan, including roles, triggers and communications actions.

Day 5: Exercising, assurance and continual improvement

• Tabletop exercise objectives, scope, injects and evaluation criteria
• Major outage scenario design for multi-site telecom disruption
• Testing recovery time objectives and decision-making under constrained capacity
• Exercise observer roles, evidence capture and after-action reporting
• Corrective-action registers and continuity improvement prioritisation
• ISO 22301 performance evaluation and management review evidence
• Annual continuity exercising and plan-maintenance calendar

Workshop: Participants run a facilitated tabletop exercise and produce an after-action report, corrective-action register and 90-day implementation plan.

Tools & standards covered

ISO 22301:2019, ISO 22313:2020, ITU-T E.800, ServiceNow Business Continuity Management

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions