Civil unrest closes UK ISP's Indian call centre
Print story24-hour curfew trumps 24-hour support
Posted in Telecoms, 13th April 2006 09:27 GMT
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Civil unrest in Bangalore, India, has led to the closure of a call centre used by UK-based LLU ISP Be.
A 24-hour government-imposed curfew kicked in yesterday evening at 5.30pm (UK time) leaving Be's broadband punters without any cover.
In an email to customers yesterday evening the firm explained: "As you are aware, the majority of our Be agents in our call centre are based in India.
"We have just been informed that there is a 24 hour government enforced curfew in Bangalore due to local civil unrest and, as a result, we are unable to handle any calls or tickets from there as of 5.30pm today. Unfortunately this unrest has affected not only our main call centre, but also our back-up sites.
A spokesman for the ISP told El Reg that Be has drafted in a small team of contractors from the UK to provide emergency back-up.
As for Be's outsourced call centre staff in Bangalore, they "will return to work as soon as it's safe to go back", he said. ®
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