Woes with network service providers
There have been continuous complaints to network service providers, FlOW and Digicel, due to continuous signal loss on either phone signal or from WiFi servers.
Multiple phones calls to the head office of FlOW have proved to be pointless as they tell you they are “working assiduously to fix the problem”, and then the line would be disconnected. A customer service agent from FLOW said, “even in the store the WiFi will go down and the system goes down with it”. When asked if the head office does anything about the problem the agent shared, “they don’t know what the problem is, but they are trying to rectify the problem. The only solution that they give to us is that we should wait until the signal comes back up”, said the agent.
Internet troubles continue in the Denbigh Crescent community as residents have been complaining since September of last year. According to a resident “these troubles started when thieves cut and stole some of the WiFi cables off the light post”. A FLOW maintenance engineer informed the Jamaica Monitor that there is copper in the cables and, “they thief it and make bullets for their guns, soon they will have nothing to steal as FLOW is slowly upgrading to fibre optic cables which performs faster”.
Another resident says it seems that there are set times for when the WiFi decides to go away. The signal goes down at 12:00 midnight and does not return until 6:00 am; between 8:00 am and 10:00 am are problematic hours for the server and throughout the rest of the day it performs but not at its best. The resident says, “if the WiFi goes away at 5:00 pm, a simple reboot of the box, and it starts to work again, however if you try rebooting the box at hours where it normally goes away it will not start working again. We try reaching out to FLOW but their response is that ‘we hear, we know, and we are working on the issue’”, says the resident.
Not only is there internet trouble, but there are also phone signal problems. “I am sometimes on a phone call, then all of a sudden the person on the other end goes silent, after repeatedly saying ‘hello’ the phone hangs up with a beeping sound and then it says network busy”, says another FLOW customer. The customer continues to say making calls can be difficult as sometimes “you are calling a number and it goes straight to voicemail. You are required to make multiple calls before the phone starts ringing”.
A Digicel customer says she has not used her sim card in months as she cannot send out calls on it or receive calls. The customer has made several visits to the Digicel store, and the situation remains the same.
According to Flow Jamaica Outage, people in the areas of Kingston, Spanish Town, Montego Bay, Portmore, May Pen, Ocho Rios and Mandeville experience an ongoing problem with WiFi and various times in the day.
