Digicel customers report problems

THOUSANDS OF customers of Digicel Jamaica, the cellular service provider, found themselves without service for hours yesterday, prompting fears that this was the start of similar network problems which recently embarrassed telecommunications giant, Cable and Wireless Jamaica Ltd.

"Mi wake up after seven this morning and no service. Couldn't call even mi parents. At first mi think a phone get cut off and then mi say something gone wrong", a customer told The Gleaner.

"I switch to (another) Digicel (customer) and the same thing is happening", another customer said.

Stressing that the Digicel sys tem had not crashed, Harry Smith, marketing director, explained that the cut off arose from an early morning software upgrade, which is routinely carried out on the company's network. The intention was to carry it out during off-peak hours but the upgrade "is just taking longer than we thought", Mr. Smith explained, adding that Digicel "will be making at the very minimum, a $200 credit on each subscriber's account to indicate our regret at the loss of service today".By late afternoon, service had been fully restored, Digicel said.

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