~ Technicians worked for more than 20 hours ~
POND ISLAND--TelEm Group announced yesterday that its technicians and engineers fully restored operation of the company's international voice and data switch following a gas incident in a server room located at the Smitcoms building on Monday, September 1.
TelEm Group management praised its dedicated team of technicians for working around the clock to identify the cause of the incident and to find temporary solutions to get the international switch back online until a more permanent fix could be put in place.
"The technicians have worked more than 20 hours straight, with only one short break, to solve this problem and I am personally very grateful to them for their dedication," said TelEm Group Chief Technical Officer (CTO) Eldert Louisa.
All internet, landline and international calling services were restored to customers at 3:00pm yesterday, along with E1 and other data communication links, the company informed.
"For now we are monitoring the switch for network stability and would like to hear from any customers who are still experiencing any problems with their international, landline, internet or data connections," said Louisa. Problems can be reported to the helpdesk at 611, up to 9:00pm.
Louisa said that technicians initially raised the alarm on Monday when fire safety equipment was deployed to contain what the system detected as a fire in the building's main server room.
"The fire retardant system is designed to go off as soon as it detects a potential problem so that any extensive fire damage to equipment and the building is minimised, therefore it operated as it is expected to," said Louisa.
Part of the routine recovery process after such an incident is for a "soft reset" when power is cut to all equipment and the equipment is then switched on and rebooted. "A problem developed when the room was cleared of gas and condensation began to affect the electrical components in the international switch," he explained.
Staff suspect some components of the switch, including vital cards, were short-circuited when the equipment was rebooted causing an interruption of the SMPR1 undersea fibre cable link between the Smitcoms Building and a connecting station in Puerto Rico.
Louisa added that once the faulty cards were identified they were replaced with spare cards obtained from a telecom partner on French St. Martin and also from a telecom provider in Curacao. "We are most grateful to these operators for their assistance and look forward to returning assistance to them at some time in the future," said Louisa.
He apologised to all customers affected by the prolonged interruption in service, which he added was caused by an incident beyond TelEm's control.
