Internet service crippled home and abroad

Internet service provided by Telecommunications Services of Trinidad and Tobago (TSTT) was crippled yesterday when the telecommunications conglomerate experienced an outage on its Americas II international submarine cable. Americas II is one of three submarine fibre optic cables that connects Trinidad and Tobago to the rest of the world. Up to press time TSTT engineers and technicians were working to determine the nature of the outage and how it should be remedied.  As a result, all international voice traffic has been switched to the two other submarine fibre optic cables which are Americas I and the ECFOS (Eastern Caribbean Fibre Optic System). According to TSTT Corporate Communications Manager Rae Ann Harper-Walters, The Americas II cable, which runs from Puerto Rico, has not only affected Trinidad and Tobago but other English-speaking islands as well as Martinique, Curacao and Venezuela. The outage, Harper-Walters said, is the first of its kind locally and has affected all of TSTT’s ISP customers and direct customers. Customers are not able to browse the Internet or send and receive e-mail. TSTT Ltd is the sole licensed provider of telephone services in Trinidad and Tobago. The company, jointly owned by the Government (51 percent) and Cable & Wireless (49 percent), has experienced a 4.8 percent growth in its customer base over the past five years. In December 2002, TSTT’s customer base stood at 324,330 lines. Services provided include basic telephone, mobile (GSM and TDMA), Internet, lease lines and data services. TSTT apologises for any inconvenience caused by the outage, a release from the telephone company stated.