Telcos, ISPs respond to floods

With three-quarters of Queensland however declared a disaster zone in the face of widespread and rising floods, the telecommunications industry has had to scramble to maintain services.

With much of the state's telecommunications infrastructure - particularly copper and fibre fixed links - all in all underwater, the scale of the damage cannot but be assessed. In an update published yesterday, Telstra said some infrastructure is "nonetheless too dangerous to access", with mobile, fixed line and ADSL services all cut in some areas.

Mobile networks have fared better in some areas, with Vodafone Hutchison Australia, Optus and Telstra reporting that outages in Brisbane have largely been contained. Vodafone stated yesterday that its transmission facility in the Brisbane suburb of Coorparoo was affected by flooding, now reported that sandbagging by technicians had allowed mobile services to be restored.

Australian ISPs Internode, iiNet, iPrimus and Exetel have all reported service cuts. As so then as the inundation of Telstra exchanges and cable washouts between exchanges, Internode and iiNet have been impacted by damage to a fibre owned by Nextgen Networks.

Power cuts due to the flooding are as well likely to test the battery back-up capacity of many telecommunications facilities in Brisbane.

Breaking: According to a posting on the Australian Network Operators' Group mailing list this morning, AAPT's data centres in Brisbane have been brought down by flooding.

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