Telcos hope to restore basic mobile service to Gisborne on Wednesday
Wednesday, 15 February 2023
Phone companies are flying in satellite equipment to Gisborne on Wednesday which they hope will restore some basic mobile phone services to the region.
But Telecommunications Forum chief executive Paul Brislen said he couldn’t rule out the possibility that some cellular services that are currently operating in Napier might fail again due to the difficulty of resupplying back-up generators that they were currently running off with diesel.
Communications services in the region have been heavily impacted both by power cuts and by breaks to some of the fibre-optic lines that are normally used to carry communications traffic, including mobile phone calls, text and data, to and from the region.
**READ MORE:
* Transpower reports further progress restoring some power to Hawke's Bay
* First progress made restoring power to Gisborne and Hawke's Bay
* Mobile and internet outages spread across the North Island
**
Brislen said the focus on Wednesday was on getting satellite backhaul links into Gisborne, so some communications could be restored ahead of the repair of the fibre-optic cables.
“Now the skies have cleared they are going to take a whole bunch of kit to Gisborne by helicopter.
“Customers should find they are starting to come back online later today or early on tomorrow. It will be very congested of course and it will be very basic – calling and texting, no one is going to be streaming,” he said.
“The satellite solution is short term, while we work on a plan for sorting out the fibre.”
The backhaul situation was better in Napier where pockets of fibre connectivity were intact, but the main issue there was that it was difficult to transport diesel to the back-up generators that were currently being used to power the cellsites themselves, because of damage to the road network, he said.
“There is a range of generators that go from needing refuelling every seven hours to every 48 hours.”
Brislen said phone companies were not at the point yet of back-up generators running out of fuel.
“I don’t think we are going to get into that position but I wouldn’t rule it out entirely,” he said.