ENB chamber concerned over communication cuts

 THE Chamber of Commerce in East New Britain is concerned about a communication outage affecting businesses in Kokopo caused by equipment recently purchased by Telikom.

Chamber president Nick Lyons said last Friday was the sixth consecutive day there had been no working lines in Kokopo.

Telikom PNG said the communication outage was affecting mainly Kokopo customers after a new system (BA1000) was installed three months ago. 

Telikom admitted that services had been affected since last Sunday. Telikom workers in Kokopo are liaising with engineers in Port Moresby and the supplier in Israel to immediately solve the problem.

Telikom said a team from Port Moresby was to travel to Kokopo last Friday but all flights were booked. 

Lyons said Telikom should have chartered a flight to Kokopo if that was the case.

“A commercial emergency such as this should justify the use of charter aircraft or a request to Air Niugini for emergency priority seating,” he said. 

“The chamber of commerce will be asking Air Niugini whether any request was made for priority seating on last Friday flight.”

Lyons said the business community was suffering because of the Telikom glitch.

“The situation which takes over a week to mobilise the technical resources necessary to resolve a complete telephone blackout in one of the nation’s largest commercial centre is completely unacceptable,” he said.

He said Telikom must clarify why the equipment supplier was not able to respond quickly to the emergency.

“Telikom should be in no doubt as to the cost burden that the prolonged outage has caused to business in terms of lost sales and missed opportunities,” he said. 

“The damage in terms of lost goodwill and confidence in Telikom’s ability to be an effective service provider is also significant.”

Similar continual outages have also been experienced in Rabaul in the past four months affecting many businesses. 

Lyons said the chamber would recommend to the IPBC to review purchasing protocol so that adequate technical support was available where the equipment was used.