HONG KONG, February 6, 2008 – A seasoned PCCW Global crisis management team applied hard-won experience to get service providers back in business after undersea cable breaks hit telecoms services in southern Asia and the Middle East on January 30.
Drawing on lessons learned during disruption caused by the December 2006 Taiwan earthquake, the “rescue” team swung into action to reconfigure PCCW Global’s resources so that westbound traffic originating in the Middle East could be re-routed east via Hong Kong.
PCCW Global’s expertise in tailoring emergency restoration plans enabled telecoms operators in seven hard-hit markets – including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait and Pakistan – to resume service to their customers.
Motaz Hashem, ITC’s Marketing VP in Saudi Arabia said: “PCCW Global greatly supported ITC by allocating capacity and restoring links in a remarkably short period of time. ITC teams demonstrated dedication, commitment and professionalism working closely with PCCW Global. We are proud of such partnership and team spirit.”
Similarly, Nasir Mehmood, PTCL’s General Manager of International Operations in Pakistan said: “PTCL/IBR is deeply grateful to everyone who helped complete this project within just one day. We would like to thank the PCCW Global team for working with such dedication to complete the project so swiftly.”
Abdul Aziz Alosami, Undersecretary of Ministry of Communications in Kuwait said:
“We lost a significant amount of our international services in this outage. PCCW Global did an amazing job to restore our affected network within hours, thereby minimizing business losses and impact on end users. We are very pleased to have a trusted global partner with such dedicated and professional team that provides excellent real-time support.”
Large-scale international outages caused by natural disasters or cable breaks underscore the crucial need among telecoms service providers and other network reliant organizations for reliable and robust global infrastructure. PCCW Global continues to invest in global resilience for terrestrial and submarine cable facilities, while maintaining a full suite of satellite services for critical restoration applications.
PCCW Global’s Chief Executive Officer, Marc Halbfinger, said: “The latest cable-cut crisis again highlights the need for resilience and advanced inter-carrier co-operation.
The response team we established during the Taiwan earthquake in 2006 was mobilized once again to customize restoration plans for our partners. The indication, skill, professionalism and ‘can-do’ approach demonstrated by the PCCW Global team was of the highest order.
