Cyborg Resilience Co-lab
Ideas / 30-minute-network-survival-guide
2026-JUL-28 NOTE

The 2026 Urban Resilience Exercise: Your 30-Minute Network Survival Guide

CHENG PENG

Claymation-style key visual: large orange lettering reads "30-Minute Network Survival Guide" and green lettering "The mobile throttling drill is coming," with "3 settings · 3 screenshots · 3 agreements" below. An office worker in round glasses sits at a desk frowning at a phone, a speech bubble beside them spinning a loading indicator, a clock on the wall.

Three settings, three screenshots, three agreements and you will get through this exercise just fine. This is only mobile data throttling — you can still make calls and send texts!

※ For the actual dates, times and content of the exercise, please follow the announcements of the government authorities ※

Claymation-style card headed "It's not an outage, it's a slowdown." A map of Taiwan at the top has two pins: "Central 8/10 Mon" and "North 8/13 Thu," with an alarm clock and text beside it reading "2:30 - 3:00 pm, 30 minutes each." Bottom left, "Will get slow / phone 4G／5G · phone hotspot," with a snail crawling over a phone and a laptop spinning a loading icon; bottom right, "All normal / calls · SMS · landline · fixed-broadband Wi-Fi," with a landline phone, a message bubble, an envelope and a smiling router.

Check the time and place of the exercise first — 30 minutes each

Once the exercise starts, browsing on your phone’s 4G／5G, and the hotspot you share to laptops and tablets, will be extremely slow

Phone calls, text messages, disaster warning alerts, 110／119: all normal

※ For the actual dates, times and content of the exercise, please follow the announcements of the government authorities ※

Claymation-style card headed "Change 3 settings," with a three-tier shelf holding, from top to bottom: 1 offline maps (map app → profile picture → offline maps), a paper map and location pin unfolding out of a phone; 2 set files to offline (do it in the phone app too), a cloud dangling three document tags onto a phone with a check mark; 3 download media first (test it in airplane mode), a phone showing an airplane icon beside headphones and a music note. A clay figure in glasses gives a thumbs-up at the bottom left.

Change 3 settings

All of them are free features built into your phone or computer — a few taps and they are working.

1. Set up offline maps Google Maps → tap the profile picture in the top right → “Offline maps” → “Select your own map” → download the area around your home, the area around your office, and everywhere else you regularly pass through.

2. Set cloud files to be available offline For the slide decks, quotations and contract PDFs you need that afternoon, right-click them on Google Drive／OneDrive／Dropbox or whichever cloud drive you use and choose “Available offline” or “Always keep on this device.” Do it once in the mobile app as well.

3. Save music and videos Download the podcasts / music / videos you want for your commute in advance.

Once you are done, remember to turn off all Wi-Fi + switch on airplane mode, and test that these offline files really work.

Claymation-style corkboard card headed "Take 3 kinds of screenshots," in three rows: 1 phone numbers / you have their messaging app but not their number, beside a contact list, a paper note and two message bubbles marked with crosses; 2 that day's schedule / meeting time · place · their phone number, beside a calendar, a name card and a clock; 3 tickets and addresses / booking code · event QR · nearby shelters, beside a train ticket, a QR code and a shelter sign. A clay figure in glasses holds up a phone to take a photo at the bottom right.

Take 3 kinds of screenshots

Just save them to your photo album — you can look at them without a network.

1. Phone numbers Family, school／after-school care, your manager, the clients you need to contact that day. Plenty of people only have someone’s LINE and have no idea what their mobile number is. Remember to copy them onto a slip of paper for your wallet too — that survives a dead phone battery.

2. That day’s schedule Meeting times, places, the other party’s name and phone number.

3. Tickets and addresses For paid high speed rail and Taiwan Railway bookings, screenshot the “booking code (number)” and then collect the paper ticket with the booking holder’s ID; event QR codes, the street addresses you are visiting, and the shelters near your home／office (you can look these up in the air-raid shelter section of the National Police Agency, Ministry of the Interior, or download the 「警政服務」 police services app in advance and save the offline map inside the 「消防防災 e 點通」 fire and disaster prevention app).

Note 1: Both the high speed rail and Taiwan Railway companies explicitly prohibit the use of screenshotted ticket QR codes.

Note 2: For rules on screenshotting event QR codes, please follow the terms of each organization/company.

Claymation-style cubby-shelf card headed "Say 3 agreements out loud": 1 to family / a message not going through is the drill, not an emergency, showing an office worker at a desk and an elder making tea at home each holding a landline handset, their cords joined; 2 to colleagues / no online meetings in this half hour, a hand sliding the 14:30 meeting block down an arrow to after 15:30; 3 to whoever does pickups / if the call doesn't connect, go wait at the agreed spot, a mother waving to a child with a backpack at the school gate.

Make 3 agreements

It doesn’t cost a cent — you just have to say it out loud.

1. To family, elders and friends “Between 2:30 and 3:00 pm on 8/13, LINE messages may not go through — that’s the network throttling drill. If anything comes up I’ll call you directly, and you can text me.” → This one sentence saves the other person a whole afternoon of anxiety~

2. To colleagues “No online meetings during this half hour.” Move the 14:30 video call earlier to 14:00, or later to 15:10; if it absolutely has to happen, switch it to a voice-only call or walk over and talk face to face.

3. To colleagues out in the field and whoever picks up the children Agree on a “check-in time ＋ meeting point,” for example “I’ll call you at 15:00; if you can’t get through, wait for me in the ground-floor lobby.” Whenever you cannot reach each other at the agreed time, head instead for the fixed meeting point you settled on in advance.

Claymation-style card headed "14:20, a three-minute wrap-up," subtitled "send off what's pending · log into systems first · carry cash and physical cards." An open wallet holds a NT$1,000 note, two cards and 50- and 10-dollar coins; an alarm clock in the middle points to 2:20; on the right a laptop is connected to Wi-Fi, with a paper plane and an opened envelope in front of it.

14:20 on the day: a 3-minute wrap-up

  • Approvals, reports and attachments you send from your phone: hit send before 14:25 and don’t cut it fine.

  • If your company systems, VPN or online banking need push verification from a phone app, log in on your computer beforehand and don’t log out during that half hour (systems that use SMS verification codes are unaffected)

  • If you need to place an order, transfer money or upload a tender, handle it on a computer on fixed broadband, or simply avoid this half hour

  • Wallet check: cash ＋ a physical EasyCard／iPASS ＋ a physical credit card. When the connection is very slow, the payment barcode in a mobile payment app may not open.

  • Check that your laptop is on the office Wi-Fi rather than your own phone hotspot

Claymation-style side-by-side card headed "How to spend this half hour." On the left, a green check mark: "make calls · do offline work · talk face to face," with a person in glasses proofreading a stack of paper by a desk lamp, phone lying quietly on the desk; on the right, an orange cross: "don't spam refresh · don't change network settings," with another person breaking into a sweat and jabbing at a phone, a router on the desk.

14:30–15:00: how to spend these 30 minutes

Things you can do

  • Connect to the fixed-broadband Wi-Fi at the office or at home and you will barely notice a thing

  • If you need someone, call them; if it isn’t urgent, text them

  • Schedule it as an “offline work block”: proofread on paper, write documents, tidy your desktop, walk over and finish a conversation with a colleague

Things not to do

  • Don’t hammer refresh. The more people retry, the slower it feels

  • Don’t go changing network settings or the APN — it is very easy to forget how to change them back afterwards

  • Don’t rush to call your telecom’s customer service

Claymation-style card whose text reads "After the drill ends at 3⋯", "Mobile data still down? Restart the phone", "Note down the thing that stalled the most and talk through backup plans with family and friends", "because a real disaster outage gives you no advance notice." On the right a clay figure in glasses writes notes with a pencil at a desk holding a pen pot, a plant and a propped-up phone; the wall clock points to 3.

After 15:00

If the network doesn’t come back on its own: switch airplane mode on for 10 seconds and then off again, or simply restart the phone.

Then spend two minutes asking yourself one question: which thing just now was the most stuck? Was it not being able to find someone’s phone number, not being able to pay, or not being able to open a file? Write it down — because when the network is damaged by a real typhoon or earthquake, nobody announces the time in advance.

Further reading: Why Run a Mobile-Network Throttling Drill? Is There Any Point?

※ For the actual dates, times and content of the exercise, please follow the announcements of the government authorities ※

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