DIGICEL REPORTS SABOTAGE AFTER MULTIPLE INCIDENTS OF NETWORK VANDALISM

This is disturbing ... here is a press release from Digicel Jamaica ...

DIGICEL REPORTS SABOTAGE AFTER MULTIPLE INCIDENTS OF NETWORK VANDALISM
APOLOGISES TO CUSTOMERS FOR SERVICE DISRUPTION
OFFERS JA$1M FOR INFORMATION LEADING TO ARREST
 
Kingston, Jamaica—Wednesday, January 8, 2014: Digicel is reporting that its network suffered multiple incidents of vandalism between 8am and 10am today. The telecommunications company is expressing shock and disappointment at the sabotage, as the incidents which led to the network outage this morning were caused by malicious vandalism.
Digicel CEO, Barry O'Brien, explained that both the primary and back up fibre routes were deliberately vandalised. "At 8:35am this morning we lost several fibre pairs on our underground fibre route from our Caymanas Switch building, however service was not interrupted as traffic was automatically rerouted to our backup aerial fibre route. However 50 minutes later, at approximately 9:25am, we sustained damage to our backup fibre route as well, which traverses a completely different path as part of our network resiliency. This resulted in service interruption to our customers," outlined O'Brien.
Digicel's technical teams and our bandwidth service providers have since repaired the damage and service has been fully restored.
"We take the opportunity to sincerely apologise to affected customers for the inconvenience. We have reported the incidents to the police and we promise to work with them to thoroughly investigate this highly unusual case of double vandalism," O'Brien said.
As a result of the interruption, customers experienced difficulties making and receiving calls and using data. 4G customers across the island were particularly affected by the unusual incidents.
Moreover, while the company is still assessing the scale and cost of the damage, O'Brien was keen to point out that the inconvenience caused to customers during the period was the most disturbing. Columbus Business Solutions was also affected by the same malicious incidents and both service providers are offering a combined reward of JA$1M to any person who can provide information that leads to a conviction.
"We take this matter very seriously and we are doing everything possible to find the perpetrators, to hold them accountable and to prevent a reoccurrence. This reward is part of how we will encourage those who have information to come forward," O'Brien said.
In the meantime, Michele English – President & COO, Columbus Communications Jamaica Limited also apologised to customers about the disruption. "We apologise for the interruption in our fibre optic services earlier today, which resulted from the actions of criminals who continue to vandalise our telecommunications infrastructure."
 
ENDS

Sent from my BlackBerry® device from Digicel