The recent inclement weather has wreaked havoc to Openserve infrastructure in Gauteng and KZN coastal areas resulting in a significant increase in network related faults.<\/p>\n
Services in Gauteng have been hit hard particularly in the West Rand, the company said in a statement.<\/p>\n
“This is because Gauteng has a high water table which has led to flooding of Telkom\u2019s underground infrastructure. The flooding has restricted workmen from accessing the fault zone and will cause delays in repair times,” it said.<\/p>\n
The extent of the damage to infrastructure in KZN which spans buildings, indoor and outdoor core and access network infrastructure is substantial and the net impact is still being assessed.<\/p>\n
In both provinces overhead cables have also been affected with trees becoming waterlogged resulting in branches breaking or falling onto overhead cables with resultant damage.<\/p>\n
Lightning has also caused damage to the cable network and customer premise equipment.<\/p>\n
\u201cOpenserve is proactively monitoring all critical sites to minimise service interruptions and is doing its utmost to restore services in affected areas as soon as possible. To assist, additional resources are being mobilised from other areas of the business,\u201d said Lucas Ndala, Openserve\u2019s COO.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Company understands the great inconvenience disconnection of its services brings to its clients and their customers and will be on extra high alert during this period, mobilising all available technicians to work additional hours if needs be.<\/p>\n
“In the event of power outages key Openserve infrastructure sites are equipped with standby generators that can last up to eight hours,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Ndala advised residents and businesses that run on Openserve\u2019s network to report faults through their respective service providers.<\/p>\n