PSEG computer system upgrades trouble some online services

Some services of the PSEG Long Island online customer computer system were unavailable last weekend, and could be impacted later this month as the company works to migrate to a new mainframe computer system.

From Thursday night to Monday morning, customers were not able to pay bills through the "My Account" option on PSEG's website, and the outage map was temporarily out of service, PSEG said. Both were restored Monday morning.

"We are seeing a high volume of customers accessing My Account, since it was down for upgrade over the weekend," PSEG spokesman Jeff Weir said. "The higher volume may cause delays and lags in loading, but it is working."

In all, he said, "It was a rather successful migration." PSEG is migrating from a National Grid system to a new one that it will host.

Weir said generally mild weekend weather meant there were few outages that would have been displayed on the online map. The outage map shows service disruptions throughout the region, and lists times for estimated restoration. It's in the process of being replaced by a new $29 million system that PSEG said it expects to have in place this month, one month after its promised delivery date.

The migration, when complete, will also bring a new customer call technology called interactive voice response that uses voice commands to navigate customer interactions.

Weir said some 180 different applications are run on the mainframe computer system that is being shifted to PSEG control this year.

Customers can expect that some services, including the outage map, may be temporarily taken offline when the second step in the migration happens later this month, Weir said. The company expects the "My Account" function could remain available during the second phase of migration.

PSEG expects online outage reporting and text-message reporting could be disrupted by the second phase of migration.