A Sydney-based SME integrator has switched its customers to 3G different types of internet and communications to lessen the impact of Telstra's CBD cable outage on customers.
Chris Herrmann, managing director at Far Edge Technology told CRN the integrator's customers weren't "jumping for joy about not having phones or Internet".
However he said with mobile Internet and phones it's been possible to "mitigate the worst impacts" of the outages.
"Customers who had redundant Internet links these all kicked in seamlessly, and for the others we've arranged for wireless 3G internet as a stop-gap for the interim," said Herrmann.
"We generally try to use different types of Internet when redundancy is required (for example ADSL and 3G, or ADSL and WiMax)."
Herrmann claimed this meant there was a smaller chance that an outage of this nature would impact them.
"With phones people are relying on mobiles instead of the office phone and customers with 1300 numbers have been able to use those to redirect calls to mobiles and staff working from home," he said.
Far Edge's customers have also made use of Skype and other VoIP services, but Herrmann claimed the services were only an option if the customer had "fast and reliable internet".
"All in all it's been a hectic time - but it's not the first major outage in the CBD and there will doubtless be others in the future," said Herrmann. "With planning you can mitigate the impact of these kinds of events, and you don't necessarily need to spend a lot to get these sorts of benefits."
Craig Middelton, media spokesperson for Telstra told CRN the cable outage was caused by an Energy Australia contractor jack hammering into eight fibre optic cables and three major copper distribution cables on Tuesday night.
Middelton said most customers would be "back up" by Thursday as the telco works "24 hours" to fix the damage.
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