Susan Gordon, Business Reporter

Phil Green, C&WJ president.

Telecommunications provider Cable & Wireless Jamaica Limited (C&WJ) is spending $2.8 billion to erect 120 new cellular towers over 18 months, to upgrade its mobile and broadband services.

The cell towers, also known as telecommunication base stations, will be deployed islandwide, but a review of planning approvals over the past few months indicates that the majority will be located in the parishes of St. Ann, St. Elizabeth and St. Catherine.

Boost

The programme will boost C&WJ's cell sites to more than 600. But this number is still far behind its chief rival competitor Digicel Jamaica Limited which has over 1,000 sites islandwide.

Digicel is also adding new cell towers to its network, with approvals similarly granted by the Town and Country Planning Authority for erections in n, St. Catherine and other parishes.

The $2.8 billion investment by C&WJ is part of the $5 billion programme, its parent C&W plc announced last year to improve on mobile, voice over internet protocol (VoIP) telephone and broadband services.

That project started under former C&WJ president Rodney Davis, is now being carried through by his successor Phil Green.

Company spokesman Errol Miller said the funding would be provided form C&WJ's budget.

"The sites are being rolled out across all parishes," he told Wednesday Business.

"Their location would have been dictated by our testing to see where on our network our coverage needed to be boosted to provide our customers with ever better service."

C&WJ will invest the remaining $2.2 billion of the $5 billion on "other capital projects designed to strengthen several areas of our company's value proposition as a full service telecoms provider," said Miller.

Business interests in the parishes to be given heaviest cell site coverage under the new programme say they subscribe to Digicel, because of the poor service they now get from Cable & Wireless.

susan.gordon@gleanerjm.com