Phone service providers make contingency plans

It’s not known when, or even if, lava from Kilauea Volcano’s June 27 flow will reach Pahoa town or cross Highway 130, but the leading edge of the flow again started to advance over the weekend after stalling for several days. Among those using the time granted by the molten rock’s slow advance to prepare for a potential disaster are telephone service providers.

Hawaiian Telcom is the primary provider of landline phone service in Hawaii, and was hit especially hard when Tropical Storm Iselle devastated parts of Puna and Ka‘u on Aug. 7. The storm toppled utility poles which carried both power and telephone lines, interrupting both power and landline phones to many in Puna. Service has been restored, but lower Puna residents are again bracing for possible outages.

With the alternative route in and out of Hawaiian Beaches and Hawaiian Shores being built along Railroad Avenue and Government Beach Road in lower Puna, Hawaii Electric Light Co. is installing new utility poles in those areas and Hawaiian Telcom is installing new fiber-optic lines on those poles.

“As part of a plan to ensure service continuity, Hawaiian Telcom has laid more than 40,000 feet of fiber along a new route,” Hawaiian Telcom spokeswoman Ann Nishida Fry said in a recent statement. “The company will continue to lay fiber as roads are completed and the power company has positioned new utility poles.”

With the exodus of many Puna residents looking to escape potential isolation by the lava or longer commute times to and from jobs in Hilo, Hawaiian Telcom has also set up a direct toll-free line at 643-1100 so its Puna customers can request their calls be temporarily forwarded to another number, landline or cell phone. The service is free of charge. The company will also waive fees for Puna customers permanently transferring phone service to a new location. Service calls are being taken Monday through Saturday, 7 a.m.-5 p.m.

Hawaiian Telcom started providing free Wi-Fi service for its customers in Puna locations in the wake of Iselle. There are now five locations where the service is provided: Ainaloa Community Center, Nanawale Community Center, Hawaiian Shores Community Center, Hawaiian Paradise Park Activity Center and Pahoa Community Center. Consumers should bring their own wireless devices, laptop computers, tablets and smartphones.

Hawaiian Telcom Internet customers evacuating Puna need not return their modems and no service fees will be assessed, the company stated.

Nishida Fry said Hawaiian Telcom has fewer than 100 wireless customers in Puna, but Verizon and AT&T have larger wireless presences in Puna and both companies say they’re readying plans to keep their customers connected.

Verizon Wireless spokeswoman Heidi Flato said Friday the company has three cell towers in the general area of the flow, and all “have permanent generators on site” in case their is a loss of commercial power.

“There are three (cell towers) that are in the area where the lava flow is and those three all have permanent generators on site,” she said. “If there is a loss of commercial power, the generators kick on immediately, so the cell sites will continue to run.”

Flato said the company’s cell towers also have back-up batteries available “as a fail-safe” in case the generators malfunction or workers are unable to access the sites to fuel the generators.

The battery life “varies depending on load and how much traffic is going on … those cell sites at any given time,” she said.

“It’s roughly four to eight hours. … And if there’s an emergency you can expect there to be increased traffic on the cell sites,” she said.

Flato said there is concern that one of Verizon’s three cell towers “is at risk” if the lava continues on its current path.

“We also have portable generators that we can deploy and we also have a portable cell site known as a ‘COW’ (an acronym for) cell on wheels,” she said. “… If one of the cell sites goes out of service and we have to deploy the temporary cell site, we can do that. There’s a temporary mobile generator that goes along with that. And we can move the generator around … to one of our permanent cell sites, we can do that, as well.”

Flato said Verizon’s cell network “held up very well” when Iselle stormed onto the island.

“There was obviously loss of commercial power, but everything that we had in place with batteries and generators, that all came into play and worked beautifully,” she said. “We’re known for our emergency response, so this is nothing new to us. Our network team is working has been working on our contingency planning for the Puna lava flow for years. So it’s good for our customers and the emergency responders and anybody who’s relying on the network to understand that our investment in our network goes to ensure that our network will work, when and where you need it.”

AT&T said in a statement last week it has “one of the industry’s largest and most advanced disaster response programs to keep its networks operational.”

“Staying connected during natural disasters like the Puna lava flow is critically important to consumers, businesses and our emergency management officials,” said Jeffrey Yamane, AT&T’s Hawaii director of network engineering.

The company said its local network maintenance teams are poised to deploy COWs and portable generators, if need be. According to the statement, standard pre-disaster network preparations also include testing the high-capacity backup batteries at cell towers and ensuring the generators are fueled.

AT&T also touted a $600 million investment in equipment and technology for its network disaster recovery program, and said it was the first private company to receive certification under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Private Sector Preparedness, or PS-Prep program, which “validates that AT&T is able to maintain or recover its own business operations in the face of an emergency or disaster, whether natural, man-made, or cyber in nature.”

Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune- herald.com.