Apr 23 - Gibtelecom Statement On Easter Weekend Power Cuts
Gibtelecom, responding today to media enquiries, said that it managed to maintain all its main communications systems throughout the Gibraltar Electricity Authority (GEA) power outages experienced on Easter Sunday and Monday.
This comprises various local and international switches and networks, together with over 40 technical sites around Gibraltar, that are all dependent on electricity and for which the Company has invested in substantial back-up power facilities.
“What failed,” as a consequence of the GEA power blackout on Easter Sunday said Chief Operations Officer, Adrian Moreno, “was that two of the four stand-by generators supporting the Company’s operations at its Mount Pleasant site were temporarily rendered out of action, together with related electrical equipment, as a result of a massive power surge. This impacted several online gaming companies, whose equipment the Company hosts in its data centres, who were without Gibtelecom service for two of the six or more hours of the general electricity blackout. The Company has apologised to the Companies affected and is in close touch with each of them about the situation.”
Mr Moreno continued “the Company’s fixed line, broadband and mobile networks appeared to function normally, via the various and extensive electricity stand-by generation facilities the Company now operates. However, customers using devices dependent on GEA mains electricity, such as digital fixed line phones, computers and broadband routers, would have lost connectivity. Mobile services, including access to the internet, continued to operate throughout the GEA power outage although some loss or deterioration of service may have been experienced in small pockets of Gibraltar.
On Easter Monday, when there was a further GEA power outage, all Gibtelecom’s services worked normally other than if people were using communications equipment dependent on an electrical mains supply. Over the course of the weekend, Gibtelecom had some twenty additional staff - over and above shift workers operating normally - working to maintain services as best as possible.
