Media houses cut off

By Christelle du Toit for Telkom
Johannesburg, 12 Sep 2008

A number of prominent international media houses, including Sky News, the BBC and various wire services, were once again unable to file news from SA this week, due to connectivity issues.

While the problem was again experienced with Telkom lines, the fixed-line operator says this time it was due to another telecommunication company's contractors.

Telkom acting group executive for corporate communication Nabintu Petsana says: "A vital fibre-optic link between Telkom's Braamfontein and Auckland Park exchanges was damaged by contractors working for another operator, thereby causing a substantial failure," at about 10.30am, on Wednesday.

The problem affected corporate and business customers, mobile cellular operators and Internet and ADSL customers.

While Telkom says its technical personnel began work on the fault within hours, it still took more than 12 hours for services to be progressively restored.

The communications downtime comes in the wake of a weekend-long blackout at the same media companies last month, when it is believed cable thieves were to blame for the connectivity interruption.

At the time, the media groups complained that Telkom only started fixing the problem on the following Monday morning, even though the fault was reported the previous Friday.

A frustrated employee said the media companies are fed-up with Telkom as the downtime they are experiencing is seemingly becoming "a regular thing".

"This has a serious impact on our productivity," says the employee, who cannot be named.