TelEm Group management this evening instructed technicians and engineers to deploy emergency measures to allow mobile pre-paid customers to make and receiving calls following a day-long blackout of mobile pre-paid and TC-Lite service Monday.
The action follows failed attempts by technicians working along with overseas vendors for a solution to restore a corrupted system on the company’s AMDOCs-Comverse pre-paid switch.
According to management, the a data-related system became corrupted following a power outage by GEBE late Sunday night and restoration of power that caused a spike and tripping of a transfer swtich during the early hours, Monday morning.
“We have assessed the damage and our personnel are busy trying to re-set the corrupted system to where it was before the GEBE power outage,” said Chief Technical Officer (CTO) Mr. Eldert Louisa.
He said the restoration is a this complicated process that takes time, therefore management, met on the issue earlier this afternoon, and decided to put in place an emergency measure that will allow pre-paid and TC-Lite customers to make and receive calls.
Management said, however, that the features available to customers through this emergency measure will be limited until the corrupted system is completely restored.
“Earlier today we anticipated few problems in restoring a corrupted system following an outage from GEBE, however, upon further analysis locally and via our remote link, the damage was found to be more severe than first thought, so we are taking alternative measures to provide service to customers,” said Mr. Louisa.
Mr. Louisa said pre-paid and TC-Lite customers can begin making and receiving calls again within the next few hours, as soon as certain adjustments are made to the company’s mobile switching equipment to facilitate the emergency measures.
“We understand the frustrations that have been caused to pre-paid and TC-Lite customers today, but we appeal to them to be patient and to rest assured that we are doing everything we possibly can to restore their mobile pre-paid service as soon as possible,” said Mr. Louisa.
Mr. Louisa said the outage today affected Mobile pre-paid and T-C Lite customer only and did not affect Post-Paid customers who utilize another part of the mobile switching equipment.