Credit: Dreamstime
NBN Co said its emergency management and field teams had begun the recovery process to network in the affected flood zones in Queensland on 13 February.
As previously reported, 2,656 services on the National Broadband Network had been impacted as a result of the floods in the Townsville area.
From the end of January through to the beginning of February, Townsville saw a year's worth of rainfall according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
NBN Co said in a statement that now that the impacted zones had been reopened, its field teams were beginning to replace damaged network infrastructure with the help of its "delivery partner" Vision Stream.
The work includes installing generators and accessing closed off areas to assess any further damage to the network.
NBN Co said there were limited services impacted but it expects there will be further impacts to the network as it begins to respond to increased incidents raised to NBN Co by retail service providers.
“We will have our Road Muster trucks located in the community recovery centres and invite residents without power or internet to come visit the Muster Trucks where the team will be able to provide free Wi-Fi so people can lodge online assistance forms or check in with family and friends," said Ryan Williams, head of NBN Co local Queensland.
“As we continue to assess the broader impact to the network in the region, we want to remind residents that equipment, including phones and medical alarms, connected over the NBN network will not work during a power blackout so have a fully charged mobile phone prepared as back up.
Telstra regional general manager Rachel Cliffe told ARN Telstra’s restoration of services was progressing well as the flood waters receded.
She said technicians were in the process of restoring fixed line services at Alice River, Annandale, Hermit Park and Idalia and ADSL services at Deeragun and Kirwan.
"We are acutely aware of the need to get our customers connected as quickly as possible and we’re working as fast as we can to make this happen,” she said.
Telstra deployed a mobile satellite 'Cell on Wheels' to provide mobile coverage around Rosslea until the local mobile base station, which was flooded, can be repaired.
Meanwhile, Optus said all of its impacted services had been restored as of the afternoon of 13 February.
"Technicians worked closely throughout the floods with the relevant emergency services to get safe access to restricted areas and where possible we provided temporary mobile base stations at evacuations centres and also generators to sites that were still affected once water receded," a spokesperson told ARN.
