Miri: Repair teams of Telekom Malaysia (TM) Sarawak here have been working round the clock to restore telecommunication services which were disrupted when cables were broken by a contractor doing construction work near the company's exchange last Friday morning.

Some 2,000 customers were affected by the disruption, the worst in recent years.

A TM spokesperson told the Borneo Post as of noon yesterday the repair team had restored 75 per cent of the services and the remaining 25 per cent of the customers in areas behind SK Syed Othman and some in the Waterfront areas were expected to have their services reinstated by midnight yesterday.

Among the premises affected were the Miri Resident's office, Miri City Council, central police station, Immigration Department at Wisma Yu Lan and federal government buildings.

The spokesperson assured that the affected customers would be given rebates for the disruption.

"Telekom regretted the inconvenience caused although the problem was caused by a third party. Although problem like this rarely happen we hoped that in future developers or contractors will cooperate with us to prevent recurrence of the problems," the spokesperson added.

The consequence of the breakdown was minimised as most offices were closed during the long holidays (Saturday, Sunday and Christmas on Tuesday).

Meanwhile, Assistant Minister of Communications, Datuk Lee Kim Shin was glad that TM had taken immediate actions to rectify the situation as soon as possible.

He said TM even sent one team from Kuching to assist in restoring the services.

"When I was told of the problem, I quickly telephoned TM Miri, urging them to give priorities to all the service areas like the Resident, City Council and the Immigration department offices.

I am glad that by this morning (Dec 26) 75 percent of the affected customers had their telecommunication services restored. I had also received many SMS (short messaging system) saying that they already had their passports done this morning," Lee said when contacted.

Lee who is also the State Assemblyman for Senadin, also hoped that TM and the contractor concerned would resolve on the compensation and rebate matters accordingly.

--Courtesy of The Borneo Post Online