In an article published on 31 December 2025 in the Daily FT, LIRNEasia Chair Professor Rohan Samarajiva highlights how the Ditwah disaster exposed major vulnerabilities in telecom networks. He emphasizes that numerous telecom sites across the country were affected, leaving many districts without mobile or data services for days, which restricted access and delayed restoration efforts. Professor Samarajiva questions whether post-disaster telecom infrastructure rebuilding should aim for mere resilience or true “building back better.” Resilience, which means restoring networks to pre-disaster conditions, may simply repeat failures. Building back better, he emphasizes, requires treating telecom infrastructure as critical and addressing the root causes of failure. 
In an article published on 31 December 2025 in the Daily FT, LIRNEasia Chair Professor Rohan Samarajiva highlights how the Ditwah disaster exposed major vulnerabilities in telecom networks. He emphasizes that numerous telecom sites across the country were affected, leaving many districts without mobile or data services for days, which restricted access and delayed restoration efforts. Professor Samarajiva questions whether post-disaster telecom infrastructure rebuilding should aim for mere resilience or true “building back better.” Resilience, which means restoring networks to pre-disaster conditions, may simply repeat failures. Building back better, he emphasizes, requires treating telecom infrastructure as critical and addressing the root causes of failure.