PHILIPSBURG--TelEm customers in the Ebenezer, South Reward and St. Peters areas lost service temporarily on Sunday after a contractor damaged one of the company’s fibre optic cables on A.Th. Illidge Road.
The contractor was working on a camera surveillance system installation when the accident occurred at approximately 10:00am Sunday.
TelEm Group Chief Technical Officer (CTO) Eldert Louisa said Outside Plant technicians from Zone 1 were quick to respond to the outage, managing to redirect telecommunication traffic via alternative routes.
Louisa said fixed voice and data services and mobile services to the affected areas were restored between 3:00 and 4:00pm Sunday.
“The connections were made temporarily so that customers in the affected areas could have service, and a more permanent repair to the damaged fibre cable will take place Monday morning,” he said.
Louisa apologised to customers for the interruption in service Sunday, which he said was out of the company’s control.
