Telecom's week of woes

Telecom Namibia clients were left without services on two occasions this week - first when its switching trunk in Windhoek for voice telephony partially failed and then cable theft also affected its services.

Close to 1 000 Telecom customers were left without telecommunication services on Tuesday night after cable theft in the John Pandeni (Soweto) and Katutura East constituencies.

According Telecom spokesperson Oiva Angula, at least 912 business and residential customers were affected by the breakdown between Kallie Roodt Street in the Northern Industrial Area, Rensburger Street in the Lafrenz Industrial Area and Penning Street in Soweto.

“Technicians are working around the clock to restore services after a gang of cable thieves cut and removed several main cables Wednesday evening, damaging two 800-pair cables, a 1 600-pair cable and another 1 200-pair cable in the process.”

Angula said initial investigations revealed that the cable thieves had broken into a manhole on the western cable run adjacent to Monte Christo Road by cutting the lock with a hacksaw.

He said a similar attempt was observed at an adjacent manhole, although no access was gained.

“Copper and optic-fibre cables were then cut in the manhole and pieces of copper cable stolen. The optic-fibre cables affected are the 48-core linking Northern Industrial and Wanaheda and the 48-core linking Northern Industrial and Katutura.”

He said repairs have started on the first 48-core cable. A contractor has been assigned to haul in approximately 200 metres of optic-fibre cable, after which splicing will start.

Angula added that the theft of Telecom copper cables is a serious problem affecting business operations, and thieves usually find willing scrap buyers for the copper.

“We appeal to Namibians in this area and other parts of the country to be on high alert and to report any suspicious activity to the nearest police station.”

Telecom's switching trunk in Windhoek for voice services partially failed on Tuesday morning, leading to a number of complaints from customers across the country who were unable to make calls to the city.

Windhoek-based fixed-line customers were also unable to call mobile numbers or receive calls from South Africa and other international destinations.

Angula told Namibian Sun that these services were restored on Tuesday.

“Following accelerated restoration efforts implemented by the company, Telecom Namibia's fixed-line voice services to and from Windhoek were finally restored. In other words, both fixed and mobile voice customers can make calls to and from 061 [area code]. International calls are also going through now,” said Angula.

He added that problems were still being experienced with Telecom's Customer Contact Centre (CCC) system.

According to him the CCC system problem is part of the switching net failure that occurred on Tuesday.

“The engineers are still working on the CCC system problem. In the meantime, to ensure customers can reach us, we have opened an additional switchboard to assist with the high number of calls received.

“Switchboard agents are transferring all customer calls to mobile phones that have been set up. In addition, we have posted alternative TN Mobile numbers on social media that customers can call.”

Angula said technicians had identified the cause of the failure as a faulty power module.

“We build our network infrastructure with robustness in mind. However, with technology failures do happen from time to time. We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience this network failure may have caused. We also would like to thank our customers for their patience and understanding.”





ELLANIE SMIT