Mobile restoration ‘seamless’

Bluesky Cook Islands says the transition of mobile service from temporary to newly commissioned network has been “relatively seamless”. This despite claims by some customers of unexpected and unexplained data losses after mobile services were fully restored in the Cook Islands on December 19. A fire on October 27 completely destroyed Bluesky Cook Islands’ second core site in Aroa, Arorangi affecting mobile network services in Rarotonga and Aitutaki. Bluesky’s commercial manager, Lahaina Kiely said “a handful” of customers had experienced credit consumption due to casual data rates being charged instead of the data packs they had purchased before the fire in October. For those customers, she said they have reset their data packs and credited back any credit due. “The transition of the mobile service from the temporary solution to the newly commissioned network has been relatively seamless,” Kiely said. “Many of our customers have complimented the teams in restoring full mobile services in the space of two months following the fire in October. “With the much anticipated data services restored, customers have been eager to use the service again.” Since mobile services were migrated on December 19, Kiely said there had also been a high demand for simcards and visitor simcards. Customers had also been making full use of top-up promotions and data promotions. “For the months of January and February, our postpaid mobile customers will receive double data on their Bluesky postpaid mobile plans,” Kiely said. “Customers will be able to see their new allowances via MyBluesky App. “Should any of our customers have any queries at all, please contact the team by free calling 123, or visit us on our Facebook page, or pop in and see us.” The destroyed facility which is valued “in millions” and the disruptions the fire caused to the mobile network on the two main islands was initially supposed to take “up to three weeks” to repair. The fire completely destroyed the mobile network core exchange, as well as primary satellite station equipment and power supply systems housed at the Aroa site. All the fixed-line telephone and broadband internet services in the northern areas of Rarotonga connected to the main Bluesky station in the Avarua town office remained uninterrupted. A day after the fire incident, Bluesky Cook Islands mobile cell sites were changed over to the Bluesky Samoa mobile core exchange via O3b Satellite links. This provided temporary mobile voice and texting services within Rarotonga and Aitutaki with no local usage charges to its customers. The burned-out core site building in Aroa was fully refitted ready for the installation of new mobile core equipment, O3B Satellite System gear and other network equipment and infrastructure. This was completed in December.

Bluesky Cook Islands says the transition of mobile service from temporary to newly commissioned network has been “relatively seamless”. This despite claims by some customers of unexpected and unexplained data losses after mobile services were fully restored in the Cook Islands on December 19. A fire on October 27 completely destroyed Bluesky Cook Islands’ second core site in Aroa, Arorangi affecting mobile network services in Rarotonga and Aitutaki. Bluesky’s commercial manager, Lahaina Kiely said “a handful” of customers had experienced credit consumption due to casual data rates being charged instead of the data packs they had purchased before the fire in October. For those customers, she said they have reset their data packs and credited back any credit due. “The transition of the mobile service from the temporary solution to the newly commissioned network has been relatively seamless,” Kiely said. “Many of our customers have complimented the teams in restoring full mobile services in the space of two months following the fire in October. “With the much anticipated data services restored, customers have been eager to use the service again.” Since mobile services were migrated on December 19, Kiely said there had also been a high demand for simcards and visitor simcards. Customers had also been making full use of top-up promotions and data promotions. “For the months of January and February, our postpaid mobile customers will receive double data on their Bluesky postpaid mobile plans,” Kiely said. “Customers will be able to see their new allowances via MyBluesky App. “Should any of our customers have any queries at all, please contact the team by free calling 123, or visit us on our Facebook page, or pop in and see us.” The destroyed facility which is valued “in millions” and the disruptions the fire caused to the mobile network on the two main islands was initially supposed to take “up to three weeks” to repair. The fire completely destroyed the mobile network core exchange, as well as primary satellite station equipment and power supply systems housed at the Aroa site. All the fixed-line telephone and broadband internet services in the northern areas of Rarotonga connected to the main Bluesky station in the Avarua town office remained uninterrupted. A day after the fire incident, Bluesky Cook Islands mobile cell sites were changed over to the Bluesky Samoa mobile core exchange via O3b Satellite links. This provided temporary mobile voice and texting services within Rarotonga and Aitutaki with no local usage charges to its customers. The burned-out core site building in Aroa was fully refitted ready for the installation of new mobile core equipment, O3B Satellite System gear and other network equipment and infrastructure. This was completed in December.