A submarine cable was damaged by the 7.6 magnitude earthquake on Sunday, according to DataCo PNG Ltd managing director Paul Komboi.
He said that DataCo was trying to find out the full extent of the damage.
“We can confirm that there is a submarine cable break caused by the earthquake 67 kilommetres north of Lae,” Komboi said.
“We (are) still trying to ascertain the full damage to our submarine cable system.
“But as of today (yesterday), we can confirm that there are multiple cable breaks on PPC-1 (Pipe Pacific Cable-1) and KSCN (Kumul Submarine Cable Network) Systems 1 and 2.
“This disrupted internet and communication services to Momase, Highlands and Niugini Islands Regions of PNG.
“Work on restoration will commence as soon as the full extent of damage is ascertained by mid this week.
“Right now, we are requesting all our major customers to use their redundancy links as we also switch our services to satellite technology as redundancy.
“This will affect the quality of services to our customers but we will continue to work towards full restoration and will update our customers on an ongoing basis on our restoration works.”
Digicel PNG in a statement yesterday said: “Due to the earthquake on Sunday, some customers particularly in Eastern Highlands, Lae and Kokopo may experience interruptions in services.
“Customers in other parts of the country may also experience intermittent interruptions in data service due to damage caused by the earthquake to the fibre network along the seabed.
The National / Tech Pacific