Digicel’s network has been encountering problems since Wednesday midday and technicians are working around the clock to rectify the situation.
“We are currently experiencing connectivity issues which have resulted in a loss of some services. Our technical team is working assiduously to restore all services. These services will be restored gradually in the shortest possible time,” Shonnet Moore, the company’s public relations manager, said in a press release.
While apologizing for any inconveniences caused, she said that $500 free credit will be given to each customer to facilitate communications needs and an additional compensation for BlackBerry (BB) subscribers who have experienced a complete loss of data services will be addressed today.
Earlier yesterday, Moore confirmed that Digicel subscribers could not receive top up (credit), check their balances or access the internet. By nightfall, subscribers had received their credit and the credit balance and top up services were restored, but within about an hour and a half no calls could have been made. Late last evening, calls could be made but the internet browsing service was still down. While Digicel had not officially outlined the reasons for the loss of some services, this newspaper has been reliably informed that the problem was created when lightning struck one of Digicel’s out-of-town sites. This resulted in customers across Guyana being affected.
Several customers yesterday expressed concern over the current situation, pointing out that not much information was being released to them. One BB customer said she first became aware that there was a problem when she attempted to browse the internet and subsequent efforts to check he credit balance were met with a “service timeout” message.
Later, the subscriber said, she received this message: “Dear Valued customer, we apologise for the technical issues currently affecting some services. We are working to rectify the situation and (to) restore all services.” This message was again sent out to BB subscribers and other subscribers around 1 pm yesterday. Earlier this month, BB service was disrupted. On that occasion the problem was a worldwide one. Each local BB customer was later credited the equivalent of one day’s subscription.
