Digicel increasing network capacity, pressing on with Caribbean expansion
published: Tuesday | November 19, 2002
Minister of Commerce and Technology, Phillip Paulwell (left), smiles with Digicel CEO Seamus Lynch (right) during a tour of Digicel's New Kingston switching facility. - Contributed
DIGICEL, HAS put in place additional infrastructure that now allows the company to accommodate up to 850,000 customers on its network.
This was announced at the official launch of Digicel's New Switch facility on Dumphries Road, in New Kingston. Special guest at the launch was Minister of Technology and Commerce, the Hon. Phillip Paulwell. Digicel, the Caribbean's first GSM (Global System for Mobile) service provider, presently has in excess of 600,000 customers on its network. The Dumphries Road switch, which is the Digicel's second switch facility (the first being located at Balmoral Avenue in Kingston), will in addition to allowing additional capacity on the network, also allow Digicel to monitor and control aspects of its mobile platforms in other Caribbean islands, from that location. Minister Paulwell congratulated Digicel on their latest venture and praised the company for the positive contribution that they had made to investment, and the nation's development on a whole. Speaking on Digicel's Caribbean expansion, the company's CEO Seamus Lynch mentioned that plans to have the necessary infrastructure in place for launch in the Easter Caribbean islands was progressing fairly well. However, Mr. Lynch mentioned that the incumbent mobile provider in St. Lucia, one of the islands in which Digicel has been rolling out its network, had been ignoring requests from the St. Lucian authorities to have discourse with other telecommunication companies, including Digicel, regarding matters such as interconnectivity (the routing of one company's calls through another company's network). Mr. Lynch said that while this was indeed a setback, Digicel remained optimistic that the situation would be resolved and that the ultimate goal of full competition, would soon become a reality in these islands.
Digicel has so far invested in excess of US$225 million in Jamaica, and has a network of more than 260 sites spread across all 14 parishes.
