Spidernet slams CyTA ‘incompetence’

SPIDERNET Managing Director Christos Christodoulou yesterday slammed the Cyprus Telecommunications Authority (CyTA) as “incompetent”, after the internet provider’s international line went down for almost four hours as a result of minor engineering work carried out by CyTA.

Spidernet’s international connection was due to be moved to a new exchange at around 9.30 am yesterday, a process Christodoulou said should have taken around five minutes. However, after problems were encountered, the international connection remained inaccessible until around 1pm.

This resulted in Spidernet subscribers not being able to access internet sites located outside the island or receive e-mail from abroad. Christodoulou said CyTA had still not told him what the specific problem had been.

All Spidernet subscribers were informed of the situation via an e-mail sent by the service provider, stating that it was “ironic” for Cyta to claim “high technological know-how” for their rival Cytanet connection service, when they “cannot even switch a single circuit”.

Cyta spokeswoman Rita Karoja told the Cyprus Mail yesterday that the corporation had not been aware of Spidernet’s e-mail of complaint, and would therefore only comment on the situation today.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.