(Trinidad Express) Thousands of Telecommunications Services of Trinidad and Tobago (TSTT) customers were unable to place calls, access mobile data and Internet services for hours yesterday after the provider suffered a widespread network outage.
TSTT chief executive officer Lisa Agard said the disruption was triggered by an “unexpected circumstance” which persisted until approximately 11 a.m. “We acknowledge and deeply apologise for the impact this disruption had on our customers’ connectivity and your daily routines,” she said in a voice recording which was part of a media release from the company.
Agard said the incident was an “isolated occurrence” which should not have happened because of several back-up plans TSTT had in place.
“We immediately dispatched our internal engineers as well as engineers from our vendors and we were able to isolate and fix the problem,” she said.
Agard said TSTT decided to give all its customers free data until midnight last night.
From about 8.30 a.m. yesterday, some affected TSTT customers began taking to social media to complain that they could not make calls or access the Internet.
While it was business as usual for telecoms providers Flow and Digicel, their customers complained that they could not place calls to bmobile’s fixed and mobile lines.
A call from a Digicel mobile phone to a bmobile phone was greeted by the voice recording: “We are unable to complete your call due to problems on another network.”
In a media release issued at 9.25 a.m., TSTT acknowledged the service disruption.
“TSTT is aware of an issue that is currently affecting mobile voice, mobile data and other services. Our engineers have been mobilised and are working to resolve the issue in the shortest time possible. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience and assure that all hands are on deck to restore the impacted services,” the company said.
Internet service provider Amplia, a subsidiary of TSTT, also informed customers about the disruption.
“We are currently facing technical difficulties that have led to an internet service outage. Our team is working diligently to resolve this issue and restore the service to its normal state,” Amplia said via social media.
Amplia said its 800-HOME (4663) contact number was also affected by the outage and was temporarily unavailable.
TSTT noted in a media release at 12.36 p.m. that all landline, Internet and mobiles services had been fully restored.
TSTT said it was able to isolate and address the issue at approximately 11 a.m.
It did not provide any further details about the cause of the outage.
Businesses affected
All Licensing Division offices were impacted by TSTT’s temporary network outage, the Ministry of Works and Transport said in a statement yesterday
“With a sense of urgency, the Internet Service Provider has assured that this matter is currently being addressed and will seek to provide connectivity in the shortest possible time-frame. As such, members of the public are advised that a range of services are currently unavailable,” the ministry said.
The network interruption also affected State bank First Citizens, the National Insurance Board of Trinidad and Tobago (NIBTT), State water provider WASA and Caribbean Airlines (CAL).
First Citizens advised customers yesterday morning to use alternative channels like online banking, ATMs and e-mail as the bank’s 62-FIRST line was down.
However, some customers complained that they were unable to access any online banking services via the bank’s website log-in and app.
NIBTT, WASA and Caribbean Airlines informed customers via social media that their telephone services were down due to the disruption, and provided customers with alternative means of communication.
In a Facebook post, the Eastern Regional Health Authority (ERHA) said it was experiencing technical problems with mobile voice, mobile data and other services.
“We apologise for the inconvenience and forward the service advisory from bmobile with further details,” ERHA said.
As to how the network outage affected supermarkets, president of the Supermarket Association of Trinidad and Tobago Rajiv Diptee told the Express via WhatsApp: “There were varying degrees impacting the operations of stores within our network. While communications were disrupted to some extent, this created security concerns, so different measures were taken at different locations as a result.
“While some outlet point of sales were inconvenienced as a result of the disruption, no major incident arising up to the present time was reported.”
