Several BPOs in Bangalore reportedly sailed through the crises after facing initial problems. A statement from 24/7 customer, a BPO, said the company was not affected by the damage as they had alternative back-up arrangements through another cable network.

Similarly, e4e, a healthcare BPO, also reported that its services were not affected. D V Narasingrao, Executive VP, Strategic Operations said, “There was an initial problem but we were able to manage it as we have alternate arrangements through pacific routes.” Satyam Computers said the availability of Global MPLS and DS3 Internet (used for International connectivity) was 100 per cent.

Re-routed traffic

“India MPLS and voice connectivity is unaffected. The Global MPLS service provider and ISPs gave highest preference to our data traffic, and re-routed our traffic on alternate paths. We continued to get 100 per cent throughout. Due to path diversity, we had higher latency for four to six hours.

Now the situation is normal on Global MPLS front, and majority of DS3 Internet connectivity. We had voice circuits from all the carriers. However, during audio conferences with USA we faced quality issues with one preferred carrier, till we switched to alternate carrier,” said Srinivasu C- Head, Network and Systems, Satyam.

The back-up lines, which most of the BPO’s have, is also said to have helped the firms to face the crisis.
“The company has circuits on both the Pacific and Atlantic routes, thus ensuring that it has 100 per cent back-up at all times. We have two providers - AT&T and Masergy, which offer us 100 per cent redundancy. What this means is that any one circuit can carry out all the workload without affecting operations,” said Mr Mukul Agrawal, Managing Director, Unisys.

While, Infosys reported to have observed high latencies and packet drops on the internet circuits resulting in slow response time while accessing applications, VPN, e-mail and internet browsing.