Calcutta, Dec. 13: More than one crore mobile Internet users in Calcutta and the rest of Bengal have been affected by data disruptions in the Airtel and Vodafone networks, which officials of both companies said had been caused by damage to undersea cables when Cyclone Vardah was raging in Chennai.
Vodafone users in the state had been shut out of mobile data services from afternoon till late in the night yesterday. Today morning, Airtel subscribers woke up to a life without mail and WhatsApp.
"I received my last mail at 12.30am and have not been able to send or receive any WhatsApp messages all day," said an Airtel customer around 8pm.
Another user had access to data services but said his 4G was working like 2G in a bad mood. "My browser is taking more than a minute to open. This usually takes a second."
The cyclone in Chennai has impacted one of our undersea network cables, which may affect Internet speeds of your Airtel broadband connection.
Airtel
We regret the temporary disruption you may have faced yesterday as a result of cyclone Vardah. All services were restored yesterday itself.
Vodafone
Airtel apologised to its customers for the inconvenience, specifying that the cyclone was to blame for it. "The cyclone in Chennai has impacted one of our undersea network cables, which may affect Internet speeds of your Airtel broadband connection. We deeply regret the inconvenience. Our engineers are working to resolve the issue," it said in a text sent out to customers.
Vodafone did likewise. "We regret the temporary disruption you may have faced yesterday as a result of cyclone Vardah. All services were restored yesterday itself," it said.
Telecom engineers with years of experience said there could be more to the data shock than the storm. "It could be that the technological deficiencies of various networks are being exposed by a 200 per cent surge in cashless transactions through mobile wallets and debit or credit cards," a telecom veteran said.
He did not rule out Cyclone Vardah temporarily affecting the servers of telecom companies, though.
