Over 250,000 cable users across the country, nearly 5,000 internet users in Kathmandu valley affected

Company officials vow to restore complete services by Thursday evening

KATHMANDU, Aug 8: A massive fire that broke out at the head office of Subisu Cablenet Pvt Ltd on Wednesday caused disruption of internet service to over 5,000 internet users in the Kathmandu Valley.

As a result of the fire, the cable TV service of the company has remained completely down across the country affecting more than 250,000 users.

The fire that broke out at the Baluwatar-based office of the cable and internet service provider at around 12:45 pm was doused after 2 hours by firefighters.

According to police, the fire has caused damages worth millions of rupees.

However, the company has not provided the details of losses caused by the fire.

Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Uttam Subedi said that the inferno was caused by a short circuit. According to him, the short circuit ignited diesel stored nearby the generator, which soon engulfed the building.

SSP Subedi said that the fire has completely destroyed hardware, satellite equipment, racks, servers and networking system installed in the office building.

He, however, said that it will take at least two to three days to estimate the exact figure of damages caused by the fire.

Senior officials of Subisu Cablenet told Republica that the internet service disrupted by the fire has been resumed for most of the users.

“The internet service disrupted by the fire has been resumed for most of the users. But, the cable service is likely to be affected for some more time. We are making all out efforts to resume even the cable service by tomorrow afternoon,” Sudhir Parajuli, president of Subisu, told Republica.

There are over 250,000 cable service users of Subisu across the country, according to the company. Subisu is one of the leading internet and cable TV service providers in the country.

He said that the internet service has already been restored through the secondary server of the company except for an estimated 5,000 users located around Baluwatar and Naxal areas.

“Due to the fire, the service was disrupted for 70 percent of the internet users. But now, the service has already been restored for most of them. Now, only about 5,000 internet users mostly around the Baluwatar and Naxal areas are disconnected from the Subisu internet,” said Parajuli, adding that all services of the company will be resumed from Thursday evening.

However, he did not divulge the details about the losses caused by the fire.

“There are many high-value equipment inside the office premise. Since we have not entered into the office yet, it would be too early to estimate the losses. Our immediate priority is to restore services to our clients,” said Parajuli.

The office building and equipment of Subisu is said to have had insurance coverage worth a billion rupees from Shikhar Insurance Company Ltd.

 
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