While Unified National Networks (UNN) has been continuing its ongoing efforts to fully modernise Brunei’s telecommunications infrastructure, the current surge of the Delta variant of COVID-19 in the country proved to be challenging for the telecommunications industry.
According to a recent joint statement by UNN and service providers DST, imagine and Progresif, the number of new Fibre to the Home (FTTH) service requests doubled after August 7 as customers require broadband to perform work from home (WFH) in adherence to the guidelines and control measures issued by Ministry of Health (MoH).
“FTTH requests have been increasing in recent years, with the outbreak accelerating the need for urgent FTTH deployment. Since it started operation two years ago, UNN has connected 36,000 new customers with another 20,000 homes expected to be connected in 2021-2024,” they said in a statement.
Telecommunication infrastructure and services are defined as essential by the MoH, and they are indeed more essential than ever in these trying times.
The telecommunication industry has activated its business continuity plans (BCP) and mandated that all employees working in the office are to WFH until further notice.
“With the unprecedented spread of the virus in the country, UNN had to reduce its manpower capacity as per its BCP activation, adapt its field operation, maintenance, and service installations, and introduced special operating procedures for its field staff and contractors involved in roles and responsibilities within the new reality – recasting timelines, budgets, and schedules to adhere to MoH guidelines and to protect the health of employees, contractors and customers,” the statement continued.
Apart from that, in addition to the quarantine orders for employees in UNN and within the contractor companies assisting UNN, the manpower capacity for field work was reduced significantly since the control measures were imposed in the country.
While it is recuperating, UNN still faces significant infection numbers and quarantine orders from contact tracing carried out since the spread.
The industry is carefully allocating its resources, including employees and equipment, to be able to serve the needs of the MoH and other agencies involved in COVID mitigation, and at the same time serving the requests from households and businesses.
“These unprecedented circumstances, together with significantly rising requests, have led to delays in service installations in the past three weeks, where capacity for new service installations do not match the number of new service requests,” they said.
“The industry is focused on shortening the gap and providing new services as quickly as possible under the conditions applicable by reintroducing employees and contractors back to the installation schedules after their quarantine orders are lifted, and by acquiring additional capacity as available in the country,” the statement continued.
According to the statement, customers, who have requested new broadband services, are asked to liaise with the respective service provider for updates.
Moreover, customers with appointments are required to reschedule their installations if individuals within the household are issued a quarantine order or self-isolation (they hold the BruHealth red, purple, or blue health code), as the working teams carrying out the installations are not allowed to enter their homes during such circumstances.
With UNN doing its best with limited manpower as a result of the outbreak, service providers – DST, imagine and Progresif – are continuing to strengthen customer services by reaching out to those waiting for connectivity and advising them of the limited resources and to be patient as the telecommunications industry slowly picks up the pace to address the FTTH backlog, while at the same time offering other telecommunication options that could suit customers’ needs.
The service providers have also opened their SMS and website portals to receive public donations where proceeds will be channelled to MoH and other COVID-10 relief efforts such as providing data to underprivileged children. – Azrina Zin
THE BRUNEIAN | BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN
