Tuesday, March 29, 2011

NTT: Restoration Surpasses 90%

NTT provided the following update on its efforts to restore services following the Tohoku-Pacific Ocean Earthquake that occurred on March 11, 2011.

  • Over 10,000 employees are making an all-out effort to restore damaged facilities


  • More than 90 percent of the affected exchange offices and mobile base station equipment have been restored and services are gradually recovering. There are 307 disrupted base stations (excluding near the Fukushima nuclear power plant), which have not yet been restored due to destroyed or damaged buildings.


  • Going forward, NTT Group is planning to have its exchange offices and base stations almost completely restored (except for certain areas where restoration is physically difficult, such as areas surrounding the nuclear power
    plant and areas with physically damaged roads, tunnels, etc.) by the end of April through, among
    others, renewal of power supplies and equipment and re-installing relay transmission lines, repair of
    relay transmission lines to mobile base stations, and area remedies for mobile phones using large zone
    schemes where a single station covers multiple stations.


  • With regards to the remaining areas, NTT Group will endeavor to prioritize the restoration of services
    in particular areas, such as municipalities and evacuation shelters, and improve the communication
    environment by, among other things, providing even more satellite mobile phones and other
    communication means.


  • Regarding corporate data communication services, approximately 90 percent have been restored to
    date.


  • Submarine cables connecting Japan with the United States and other parts of Asia have been partially damaged, but NTT Group has been using various backup cable routes to maintain uninterrupted services, and there is currently no impact on its overseas communication services.


  • To support the affected people of the disaster, NTT Group is, among other efforts, providing its
    communication services free of charge, safety confirmation information of those affected, and
    company residences as living space for those impacted by the earthquake.


  • NTT Group is working to gather donations from its customers and has decided to donate one billion yen. NTT Group will devote its full strength to support the victims of this disaster and the recovery of the stricken areas.


  • The company deployed about 30 mobile base station trucks, 870 free satellite mobile phones ,1,440 mobile phones and 180 tablet PCs.


  • There are 9 fixed-line service buildings and 68 mobile base stations that have not been restored near the Fukushima nuclear power plant.


Following the earthquake and tsunami, facilities were damaged and commercial power supply was disrupted at
exchange offices. This impacted approximately 1.5 million fixed line circuits, approximately 6,700 mobile base stations, approximately 15,000 corporate data circuits.
http://www.ntt.co.jp