Trinidad and Tobago back online after internet service break

Many people in Trinidad and Tobago awoke on Monday morning to find they were unable to get online.

Internet connectivity to several service providers was affected by the disruption of an international cable link on Monday morning. But by afternoon, the companies said they had been able to restore full connectivity to their customers.

Other parts of the region were also affected.

The Telecommunications Authority (TATT) released a statement on Monday which said the problem was "island-wide," but the source of the problem had been identified and work on restoring connectivity began immediately, with full service expected to be back by midday.

The statement said another media notice about an internet outage carrying the authority's logo was in circulation, but that was an outdated statement from 2015 and should be disregarded.

Service providers Flow and Digicel issued advisories on their social media platforms informing customers of the interruptions.

Flow said the root cause of the issue was a loss of power on a link in Curacao that provides "critical capacity" for local internet traffic.

Digicel said Home and Entertainment customers in Trinidad and Tobago, St Vincent and Barbados experienced "service degradation."

It explained the disruption was caused by equipment failure at an international upstream internet supplier, triggered by a power failure in Curacao.

Operations director Chandrika Samaroo said, “Last week there was a significant subsea fibre break between Guadeloupe and Antigua. This affected some Digicel plus customers and unfortunately that problem is still being dealt with,”

To help maintain connectivity, Digicel re-routed service through an alternative path via the same upstream supplier through Curacao, Samaroo explained.

But on Monday morning, "There was a major island-wide power outage in Curacao that disrupted that path as well. Once that happened, services here in TT were also affected.”

Samaroo said while the outage caused massive congestion on both mobile and fibre networks, it did not totally interrupt service, and Digicel was still able to support a "significant percentage" of its traffic.

Telecommunications company TSTT also issued a release which said submarine cable fibres in the Eastern Caribbean were damaged.

It said the damage affected its mobile customer base because mobile internet customers who would customarily split their internet usage between the two mobile networks were utilising the bmobile network exclusively.

It also said the company expanded its subsea capacity to provide different routes in the event of a breakdown of its subsea networks. These networks, it said, connect to the internet via the US, which allowed fixed-line customers to maintain internet access.

BY Monday afternoon, Flow said, its engineers had worked to restore full connectivity and leveraged resources across the Caribbean to ensure reliable connections were re-established.

TSTT also told customers its efforts to ease congestion on the mobile network had been successful.

In the meantime, however, the disruption affected schools, which are currently holding classes online.

Exams at UWI which were supposed to begin on Monday were also affected. It said, however, that all students would be given the chance to complete their exams.

Other online events also had to be cancelled or rescheduled. The virtual sitting of the 18th National Youth Parliament was postponed until further notice.

The Ministry of Health cancelled its Monday morning virtual media conference on covid19.

Other areas of business, including banks, were also affected. Scotiabank issued a statement which said some customers experienced issues with over-the-counter transactions, ATMs, online banking and point-of-sale machines. But it said by 11.30am the bank had resolved the issues and all services were back online.

President of the Primary Schools Principals Association Lance Mottley said teachers had to abandon online classes entirely on Monday.

“I can’t say if it was widespread, but certainly my school was affected…I couldn’t get online,” he said.

He added, however, this being the last week of the school term, not much work was being done.

“What is happening now is teachers are collating marks and putting things together to give their reports on students' performances.”

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