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Customers of 4G LTE network Surfline would have to wait a little longer for service to be restored while the company is still in the process of assessing damage after fire gutted its data centre at Tema. 

Following the fire incident on Sunday, February 1, service on the network has been disrupted.  

The Head of Brands and Communication  of the company, Mr Edwin Amoako, said the company was still assessing the extent of damage and would come out with specific timelines once it was done.

He was speaking to a section of the media in Tema when the Minister of Communications, Dr Edward Omane Boamah, and officials of the National Communications Authority (NCA) visited the company to express their sympathy on the unfortunate incident.

“We want customers to rest assured that there our engineers on the ground making sure the problem is rectified and we would restore connectivity. It takes a little bit of detailed cleaning and diagnosis to be able to give exact timelines. In order not to mislead our clients, we are waiting for the engineers to finish the assessment and then timelines will be communicated,” he explained. 

He added: “We have been communicating with our customers via facebook, text messages and radio, assuring them service would be restored. We share in their sentiments and we will do everything possible to rectify this situation.”

Although the company had a back-up plan, he said the critical elements of the system had been damaged and as a result there was little the company could do currently. 

“Yes, we do have a back-up in place, but it is the critical element of the system that has been affected. In the telecommunication sector, everything is interconnected so anything that happens affects the whole system. That is how come we are having this challenge, but of course there was a back-up,” he said. 

Dr Omane Boamah said the essence of the visit was to show solidarity and to assess the level of damage, adding that fire in a telecommunication company was different from that of normal fire recorded in homes and other corporate organisations. 

The communications minister noted that it was heartwarming to know that the company was working to restore connectivity and was still in touch with customers to assure them while they waited for service to be restored. 

He explained that the 4G network remained the best so far, considering its speed and quality, and as such other telecommunication companies must learn lessons from what happened and work to avert such situations from recurring. 

Compensation for customers
The Chief Executive Officer of the company, Dr Yaw Akoto, said customers would be compensated for the loss and all the programmes customers were on prior to the damage would be restored. 

He also assured customers that engineers were working around the clock to restore services.