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The
SEA-ME-WE-3 fiber optic internet cable was reportedly
damaged on Monday at the floor of the Arabian Sea 50km
south of Karachi, Pakistan. A service vessel belonging
to E-Marine, a UAE company hired for cable maintenance,
was dispatched from the United Arab Emirates to undertake
repairs.
This
has been a major blow to the IT industries both at Pakistan
and India. Some better-funded Indian call centers had switched
over to satellite backup systems, where available, but
that not all centers had invested in such connections.
While
in Pakistan, Pak Telecom Company Ltd - PTCL, Pakistan’s
major backbone provider scrambled to provide immediate
satellite backup systems on priority to major Business
Process Outsourcers and International Call Centers.
Damage
to the undersea telecommunications cable SEA-ME-WE3 (SMW3)
Monday initially disrupted most of Pakistan's international
telephone and Internet connections, but the outage spread
to India, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Djibouti as
repairs were started yesterday.
Anthony
Mitchell reports “Call centers in India using connections
through the Reliance Group, India's largest corporate conglomerate,
to SMW3 to reach customers in the U.S. were experiencing
service outages for the past day, they reported to InternationalStaff.net,
a company that specializes call center program management,
etc.”
He
adds “There have been conflicting reports on the
expected duration of the service disruptions caused by
the damaged cable. The Press Trust of India, Reuters, Pakistan
Press and Xinhua have all reported that disruptions are
anticipated to last for two weeks.”
Pervaiz
Lodhie, President and CEO, Ledtronics Inc. Los Angeles,
one of the leading firms of the LED [Light Emitting Diode]
industry, who outsources its complete MIS, BPO and Call
Center support to NBA Computers, Karachi, said that aside
from a slight glitch felt on Monday in the services being
outsourced to Pakistan, “it was business as usual
for us. We have not experienced any problems or service
degradation from working with NBA Computers at Karachi,
Pakistan.”
Babar
Jhumra, Managing Partner, NBA Computers International Call
Center and BPO in Karachi, Pakistan, said that call center
operators in Pakistan have been told that service levels
on SMW3 could be restored as early as the end of the day
today. He also said that he was satisfied with PTCL’s
performance in providing immediate sat-link. Although officials
for the Internet Service Provider Association of Pakistan
(ISPAK) have said that repairs might not be completed until
Friday.
SMW3
provides Pakistan with its sole high speed cable access.
All call centers in Pakistan serving international customers
have been without their usual level of telecommunications
service since Monday.
The
government of Pakistan has provided satellite backup systems
to international call centers in that country at no charge
to those centers, in order to make them more internationally
competitive, and all international call centers in Pakistan
are reportedly operating on satellite backup connections
now.
Mr.
Nasser Jhumra, CTO and Partner, NBA Computers based in
Los Angeles added that “vital satellite backup services
have kept the call center industry in Pakistan functioning,
and degraded line quality was next to minimal.”
IT
firms that did not qualify as pure international call center
operations and have not been allowed independent access
to satellite backup capacity in Pakistan have reportedly
been particularly hard hit.
Additional
two new satellite connections have been reportedly added
to the existing three sat-links providing Pakistan with
80% of in international bandwidth needed by the International
Call Center and BPO industry, which is also enough to support
about 1,500+ voice lines using conventional technology.
According
to ISPAK, there are over 50 ISPs in that country, serving
more than 10 million Internet users who have only been
able to send and receive emails but not to surf the internet.
The
view from NBA Computers' Jhumra was positive. He said that
when service disruptions initially occurred on Monday,
his center lost Internet connections for only a few minutes,
but their voice connection has been on satellite backup
systems provided by PTCL, since then. Jhumra said that
NBA Computers is possibly among the few call centers still
operating in Pakistan.
As
a pure call center operation, NBA has been receiving satellite
backup service continuously and at no cost since service
on SMW3 was initially disrupted. However, satellite service
has latency issues.
Mitchell’s
reports “In tests conducted for InternationalStaff.net
late yesterday, NBA Computers reported a latency rate of
450-550 milliseconds between Pakistan and the U.S. using
satellite backup lines. Latency rates above 500 milliseconds
are considered below commercial quality, at least for extended
use. Indian call centers tested by InternationalStaff.net
have also been within the 450-550 milliseconds latency
range when using satellite uplinks.”
Jhumra
said that work is underway to provide a separate telecommunications
link for Pakistan, SEA-ME-WE-4 (SMW4), which is scheduled
to go live this October.
SMW4
will provide Bangladesh with high speed connectivity as
well, ushering in competition for IT outsourcing services
opportunities from an English-speaking country that to
date has largely remained on the sidelines of the outsourcing
boom.
The
lack of a redundant communications link is the most significant
of Pakistan's IT challenges. There are also plans underway
to build a high speed telecommunications link between Pakistan
and India, which would provide additional redundancy to
both countries.
Source/excerpt:
Anthony Mitchell, C.E.O. InternationalStaff.net, US. |
