Queensland Floods Continue To Drown Mobile And Broadband Networks

There’s been little relief for our northern neighbours today as flooding continues throughout Queensland. The damage continues to affect major communications infrastructure, with all the major Telcos having to battle the weather to try and keep services running.

The biggest problem for the telcos it seems is in areas where the mains power has been cut, pushing services back to their backup power. According to the SMH, Telstra and Optus have been using helicopters to access remote areas to restore power, while Vodafone employees sandbagged a transmission tower to keep flood waters at bay. ZDNet reported yesterday that some locations on battery backup were inaccessible, which meant it was only a matter of time before the network failed.

That said, engineers across all carriers are doing everything they can to keep services active, with both Telstra and Optus diverting fixed line calls to mobiles free of charge, and delivering free handsets through Red Cross centres and Anglicare.

In terms of fixed line services, many ISPs – including TPG, iiNet, Internode and Exetel – are reporting service interruptions, thanks to the flooding impacting exchanges across the state. In addition, AAPT’s datacentre was forced to power down due to the flooding yesterday.