Cable & Wireless working to restore full service after electrical surge

Fixed line customers got back their ancillary services, which were disrupted on Monday morning, which telecommunications provider Cable & Wireless says was caused, after its core switch was affected on Monday morning by an electrical surge.{{more}}

All Cable & Wireless fixed line and Interconnect calls (outgoing fixed, mobile to 3rd party and mobile to International) went dead shortly after an electrical power failure at 9:49 a.m. on Monday. A release issued by St. Vincent Electrical Services Ltd (VINLEC) on Wednesday said that the island wide blackout was as a result of a problem at the 33KV substation in the north leeward village of Spring Village.

“Following prompt action by the Technical team, power was restored to 90% of customers at 10:31 a.m. However, some customers on the Leeward side of the island had power restored during the mid-afternoon period,” the Vinlec release said.

Even though power was restored, business coummunications remained at a virtual halt as fixed telephone lines remained down for most of the business day, affecting outgoing and incoming calls, faxes and credit card transactions. Even the two radio call in programmes turned into monologues by the hosts, as listeners were unable to call in to make their contributions.

Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Cable & Wireless Ftiz Huggins told Searchlight on Tuesday, “Our core network was back up by 2:55 p.m,” but admitted that there were “pockets” where the land line service remained down, or sporadic, into late Monday evening. Cable & Wireless bMobile to bMobile calls and Digicel to Digicel calls were not affected by the blackout.