Telecommunications services on SXM hit for second straight day | SOUALIGA NEWSDAY

SINT MAARTEN (POND ISLAND) - Telecommunications services on St. Maarten were hit for a second day in a row Thursday – this time due to a damaged SCCS undersea cable in St. Eustatius.

The outage occurred about 11:02 am Thursday and was quickly traced to a manhole in St. Eustatius, where work on repairing the damaged cable quickly got under way. Technicians and engineers responsible for the undersea fiber cable were able to transfer connection to an alternative route, while the damaged cable was spliced and reconnected.

Technicians and engineers say the damage is not connected to another incident at approximately the same time Wednesday morning when international telecommunication services were also interrupted for just over an hour. That incident has since been traced to a damaged telecommunication card used in telecommunication equipment in St. Kitts, that has since been replaced.

The outage affected all fixed and mobile data services of TelEm Group with services being restored at approximately 1:27 pm Thursday afternoon.

TelEm Group says the outages on Wednesday and Thursday, while occurring on two consecutive days are not connected.

“We once again take this opportunity to apologize to our customers and the general public for this second interruption to their telecommunication services, which once again was beyond our control,” said TelEm Group is a statement shortly after services were restored.