. Simbao

By JAMES KUNDA –
MOBILE communication services in most parts of the country have been interrupted as the network fed to the 204 Global System for Mobile (GSM) communication towers has broken down.
This has been caused by a fault on an orbiting satellite, AMOS-5, which is owned by Spacecom, an international communications provider servicing Central and Southern Africa.
Other affected countries were Angola, Namibia, Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Most of the affected parts in Zambia were, chiefdoms, where new mobile towers were erected under phase-one of the Zambia Information and Communication Technology Authority (ZICTA) project, which commenced in 2012.
Transport and Communications Minister Kapembwa Simbao told Parliament in a ministerial statement yesterday, that ZICTA had since engaged Spacecom to see how promptly communication services could be restored.
Spacecom, had been asked to migrate the traffic for the 204 GSM sites to an alternative satellite, which operated in the same frequency band as the AMOS-5.
Prior to the failure of AMOS-5, ZICTA through the contractor, Huawei Technologies Limited, commenced the process of resolving problems on 36 out of the 204 towers which became faulty after commissioning.
As at the end of last month, Huawei had been to 12 sites to solve the problem, however, the availability of service to all the sites was pending resolution of the problem on AMOS-5.