How to use mobile communication in critical infrastructures: A dependability analysis

Abstract

Critical infrastructures, like the future power grid, rely strongly on a reliable communication infrastructure. Mobile communication seems an attractive candidate, as the entry costs are low and, provided the coverage, the new devices have immediate communication access upon installation. However, considering the long time-frame of this investment, it is important to think about the constraints in mobile networks and also potential challenges waiting in the future. In this study, which is based on the situation in Norway, we discuss four important future challenges: policy change, contract change, change of Quality of Service and network failure. We show that a clever use of mobile communication like multihoming or using a mobile virtual network operator may meet the challenges. In the second part, we quantify the availability of the different mobile communication usages with the help of analytical models and show that already a small increase of additional battery capacity in the mobile network improves the availability significantly.