PTI to continue work on fiber optic cable project

Pacific Telecom Inc announced yesterday of upcoming work to its undersea fiber optic cable from May 29 to June 3, 2008. This means PTI customers may experience longer download times with Internet and DSL during the project.

PTI said it does not anticipate loss of service at any time. “Upon project completion, PTI will complete the upgrade that was begun last year and additional bandwidth and capabilities will be available as our fiber optic cable will be operating with increased capacity,” it said in a statement.

PTI’s state of the art microwave system will handle all telecommunications traffic during the project and offer redundancy for all telecommunications systems. Since the upgrade last year, additional equipment was purchased to provide increased bandwidth to handle Internet traffic during this time.

Last summer while performing maintenance and upgrading the fiber optic system, a tropical storm forced the NTT Marine crew to stop work and return to port due to safety concerns. After the storm passed, the cable was put back into service, but more cable was required to complete the project. Twenty kilometers of cable was needed and had to be fabricated in France and transported to Saipan.

“Last year’s unexpected storm made it necessary for additional fiber optic cable to be brought to the CNMI so the project could be completed. It takes many months for this type of cable to be produced and for the ship and crew to be scheduled,” said Larry Knecht, general manager of PTI. “Since this was the last step before project completion last summer, it will only take a few days to finish over Memorial Day weekend.”

NTT World Engineering Marine Corp. (NTT-WE Marine) will be returning to complete this project. NTT-WE Marine will deploy a cable repair vessel to the CNMI for this project.

“PTI remains committed to serve the needs of the CNMI. We will make every attempt to complete the upgrade as quickly as possible in order to minimize any inconvenience this may cause. PTI would like to thank our customers in advance for your understanding as we make important upgrades and improve our service to our customers,” the PTI statement said. Customers are asked to call 682-4PTI with questions. [B][I](PTI)[/I][/B]