Redundancy put to the test during fibre cable cut

Published On: July 23, 2010

A huge fibre-optic cable cut in Brampton on the Friday before the summer’s busiest long weekend put Extend’s backup plans to the test earlier this week. For over 29 hours June 30-July 1, calls normally handled by Extend’s Georgetown Ontario call centre were re-routed to its Brantford location using VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol). The redundancy platform uses leading edge Asterisk technology, and was developed by Extend’s Information Technology (I.T.) Manager Mark Frey for just such an occasion.

While the system was tested internally several times, this week marked the first time it was used in an emergency situation. “We would have been down for the entire 29 hours had it not been for our redundancy planning”, said company president Scott Lyons, of the system upgraded just 3 months earlier. “This real-life trial has given us ideas for further enhancements to the ultimate advantage of our client base.”