FLOW and Digicel say vandalism the cause of service outages

A “significant act of vandalism” has left thousands of people without internet connectivity across the country’s two main telecommunications networks.

Digicel confirmed the service disruption in an email to customers.

“An act of vandalism, where fibre cables were intentionally cut, has been confirmed and is currently causing widespread service outage affecting customers across Jamaica,” said the email seen by The Gleaner.

It did not disclose how many customers were affected.

FLOW, the other main telecommunications provider, said “thousands” of its customers had their services “severely disrupted” by a “significant act of vandalism” on Tuesday.

“There are also public safety concerns with this mischief and we condemn in the strongest possible terms any acts that damage, disrupt or otherwise interfere with the company’s network and associated infrastructure,” said a statement from FLOW.

The company said while it continues to invest in state-of-the-art networks, there are still people who believe that “there may be something of value in the cables”.

FLOW urged the public to respect its critical infrastructure, noting that destroying them not only disrupts operations, but also impacts the broader community.

- Livern Barrett

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