Digicel pushes for full restoration by year end

At least 75 per cent of Digicel customers in four of the parishes with significant impacts from Hurricane Melissa will have service restored to them within the next two weeks, according to the local telecoms giant.

Senior officials from the company, who appeared before the Infrastructure and Physical Development Committee of Parliament on Wednesday, also pledged to restore full service to the parishes of St Elizabeth, Westmoreland, Hanover and St James by the end of the year.

The company reported that following the passage of the Category 5 storm on October 28, thirty per cent of its customers across the island were still accessing its service. However, 14 days later, service has been restored to 60 per cent of its customers.

Chief technical and innovation officer at Digicel, Bjorn Reynolds, told members of the parliamentary committee that 37 of the company’s sites, erected on rooftops, had been destroyed by the ferocious storm. Eight are to be restored in 14 days.

EXTENSIVE DAMAGE

He said Digicel is trying to restore service to customers in the hardest-hit areas by deploying Starlink as well as microwave technology, as its fibre infrastructure has been extensively damaged.

At present, Reynolds said the company has restored service to St Elizabeth up to Santa Cruz. In Hanover, Hopewell Hill and Sandy Bay have been restored as well as Daniel Beach, which borders Westmoreland.

While the telecoms company is pushing to restore service in areas most severely affected, its diesel fuel that keeps generators going at cell sites is being targeted by unscrupulous persons.

Head of network operations at Digicel, Anthony Barrows, said the company has placed more than 140 generators in western Jamaica that require constant fuelling and servicing.

The Digicel executive said the company put a significant amount of fuel at Daniel Beach, a key facility to help restore service to the west, but the fuel was removed by persons for their own benefit.

“We are putting the infrastructure in place to support the redevelopment and reattachment of customers, and we are pleading, almost, with the public to help us to make that possible,” Burrows said.

“We want to drive home the point to Jamaica, in general, that we need to form a coalition around protecting those infrastructure, so that a broader group of people can enjoy the restoration uninterrupted,” he added.

He told the committee that in the past, the company had lost generators to theft.

While lauding members of the police force for their efforts in trying to protect Digicel’s infrastructure, Barrows stressed that the community coalition is the best way forward to address the problem.

He also explained that if the company were to deploy security to all its cell sites, the cost of delivering the service would be significant.

Barrows said the colour of the diesel fuel used by Digicel at its cell sites is purple. He cautioned persons who might be purchasing fuel with this colour to be careful, as they could be obtaining stolen goods.

edmond.campbell@gleanerjm.com