“The Telecommunications System in the eastern Cuban province of Las Tunas is much more reliable and safer with the uninterrupted reconstruction works carried out after the fire at the main center of the Cuban Telecommunications Company S.A. (ETECSA), which took place last December 16,” assured Tania Velázquez Rodríguez, executive president of said entity, who also described as "significant" the progress made in the recovery.

After more than 10 days of work, the head of ETECSA confirmed that all the mobile telephony radio bases, all the public Internet browsing areas, and the alternative fixed telephony lines (TFA, by its acronym in Spanish) are in service. "There are still some services to be reestablished," she said.

Velázquez Rodríguez also informed that the Nauta Hogar internet service is almost completely restored." This has been possible, she stressed, due to an uninterrupted work during 24 hours a day and unprecedented concerning other affectations we have had in the company due to different incidents, whether natural or not.”

THE MAGNITUDE OF THE TRAGEDY

Tania Velázquez Rodríguez specified that the fire damaged all the telecommunications services in the province. We lost, she enumerated, the communication of more than 52 thousand fixed services, a figure that reached more than 60 thousand lines adding other modalities, such as alternative fixed telephony (TFA) and public telephony.

The failures affected more than 10,800 Nauta Hogar services and 1,900 connectivity services, which support the operation of key entities for the daily life of the province, such as the banking, commercial, and fuel dispensing systems, as well as radio and television signals.

All the radio bases that provide service to the more than 230 thousand active mobile lines in the province also ceased to operate. Likewise, the 82 wireless Internet access sites using Wifi technology, with their more than 130 antennas, were also canceled. The incident had repercussions on other services provided by ETECSA in neighboring provinces that use systems based here.

THE FEAT IN NUMBERS

The executive president of ETECSA noted that more than 50 thousand telephone pairs have been tied, a process which, she explained, extends to the switching areas within the plant. She described, "Until we reach the subscriber's number, to verify that all the physical matching that has been reconstructed has taken place correctly; this verification is carried out by colleagues in real-time and with the help of colleagues from the Call Center and other areas that have joined in, both in the field and by telephone". She said that more than four kilometers of cables have been laid, and other wounds suffered by the equipment are being healed with the help of other provinces.

She explained that the organization of the work began with those services with the greatest scope or impact on the population. Mobile telephony was the priority at the first moment of intervention, she said. Then, first alternative solutions were provided, and then definitive ones, to other key links, such as the banking sector, the health sector, and various providers of direct services to the public.

The complexity of the work, she emphasized, surpassed the civil actions that had to be carried out in the area affected by the flames. The damage, she said, reached other parts of the building, and it was necessary to rebuild many of the installations, such as fiber optic and copper cable systems.

"We have to point out, she said, that a group of tasks has been carried out by colleagues of the Territorial Directorate itself who usually work in other functions, the effort has been important.”

She also confirmed that the non-stop work is being carried out not only by technicians from Las Tunas but also with the support of brigades from other areas of the island, who came from Havana, Camagüey, Holguín, and Granma. Likewise, with the participation of specialists from the National Operations Management Center and other areas of the company that sent resources redirected to this most urgent purpose.

BETTER THAN BEFORE

The directive emphasized that the reconstruction of the damaged infrastructure has been carried out under the premise that the final quality will be superior to what existed before December 16. "From all this work, she pointed out, it was taken advantage of so that the solutions that were given would result in a more robust system for the territory. New communication routes were foreseen, the reorganization of the systems, for example, of the entrance of the cable systems to the telecommunications center; and contingency elements are taken into account to face any event that may occur and to be better prepared.”

Other operational decisions have been made, she said, about work shifts, which result in a better performance of the technicians. "Here we have a few works for the Science and Technology Forum that we should generalize throughout the country since they have allowed us to take advantage of the time," she said.

Las Tunas, she said, will be "in better conditions to scale up and expand services.” And she exemplified this by mentioning the installation of a new cabinet in the sports district, which will extend the telephone network in that area of the provincial capital.

She maintained that the speed and quality of the reconstruction make valid the commitment made last December 18: before the end of the current year, the vast majority of the damaged services will be reestablished.

"The work does not end with getting them up to speed," she clarified. We will identify brigades from other provinces that can, as of January 4 or 5, 2022, continue with the recovery and consolidate what has been achieved". In this sense, she asked for the understanding of the customers for the failures that may occur during this process of start-up and constant revision.

Finally, she emphasized that without the support received from the authorities and the population, in general, it would not have been possible to carry out a task of this magnitude.