Pond Island:--- TelEm Group is busy working with the Bureau of Telecommunications on St. Maarten to identify a source of interference that is affecting the company's 3G mobile customers.
According to Chief Technical Officer (CTO) Mr. Eldert Louisa, the interference is a total mystery and it is causing mobile voice and data customers to drop calls and lose internet connections without warning.
He said the problem was reported to the Bureau of Telecommunications as soon as it was determined that the interference was not caused by faulty hardware of software from TelEm Group's own 3G mobile voice and data network.
"We have reported the matter to the Bureau and we have requested a different frequency for our customers until we can find the source of the interference and shut it down," said Mr. Louisa.
He cannot say at this stage if the interference is deliberate and malicious, but says it is certainly affecting regular 3G voice and data services to TelEm Group mobile customers.
Customers who are experience problems with the TelEm Group 3G network are advised to take their handsets off AUTO and "push" their service onto the company's 2G network until the new 3G frequency request to the Bureau of Telecommunications is granted.
Using AUTO will cause the handset to toggle between 3G and 2G. This is not desired. At present customers in the affected areas should keep their phones on 2G only. The affected areas areCole Bay, Simpson Bay, Maho, Cupecoy and South Reward
"Mobile handsets and smartphones that are set to automatically select the most suitable network will jump from the 2G network to the 3G network depending of what signal is available. We are advising users who have their phones set for 3G use only, or for AUTO use, to reset their handset to the 2G network as a temporary fix if they are having difficulty at this time with the 3G voice and data service," advised the Chief Technical Officer.
According to Mr. Louisa a team of engineers and technicians along with Manager, Network Operations, Mr. Julien Lake, are diligently working on the problem of locating the source of the present inference and at the same time are preparing the network for any new frequency configurations that may be deployed.
"Customers can rest assured that we are doing all that we can to resolve a matter which is not totally within our control," Mr. Louisa added.
TelEm Group management has meantime apologized to customers for interference to their regular 3G voice and data mobile service.
Telem Press Release
