Telcos Sustain Devastating Floods to Provide Uncut Communication

Ragging monsoon floods — spread across Punjab and Azad Kashmir — caused havoc devastation throughout the upper part of the country. Hundreds of thousands fled their homes as humongous magnitude of waters covered the lands and fields of Punjab and Kashmir.

Khawaja Mohammad Asif, the minister for water, power and defence said that as many as 700,000 families were effected by the floods. Civil administration along with military resources are aiding the masses for  evacuation, food supply and health care.

Roads, buildings, communication channels, power supply, transpiration means  and almost every other infrastructure was struck with ultimate destruction.

During such upsetting times, telecom operators were largely able to keep their communication equipment in tact. They not only sustained the floods, but in fact proved to be the only communication mode available for wide and remote areas of the country where all other transportation and communication links went offline or were not accessible.

Cellular mobile companies told ProPakistani that other than few instances, there services remained up and running throughout the flood hit areas. They said that keeping the cell-sites live was a challenge since electricity power was cut for an average of 36-48 hours in various areas, however, back-up energy solutions coupled with redundant network was able to keep the cellular services running throughout the tragedy.

Since cellular service was only communication mean left in majority of the flood-hit areas, government and Pakistan Telecommunication Authority decided to use cellular services to broadcast flood-warning alerts to customers via SMS.

This is not the first time that cellular companies stood in the line of duty and offered parallel and uncut communication to customers. This has happened before when telecom companies provided seamless services regardless of the troubles, cost and the man-power required to keep the network live.

Telecom companies, unless forcibly shut-down by government itself, have remained committed and dedicated towards their promise of providing reliable communication in whatever conditions.