DIGICEL says it has completed a massive expansion project on its 4G mobile network that has increased its coverage to 92 per cent of the population.

Krishna Phillipps, the telecom’s chief technology officer, said the development is in line with a commitment made by the company to provide Internet everywhere for everyone and ensuring that Jamaica stays abreast of mobile technology changes.

“Digicel is already making significant headway in increasing Jamaica’s mobile broadband footprint in every parish and ensuring that people across Jamaica have access to the fastest and most reliable mobile broadband network,” Phillipps said in a press release.

“As part of the recent expansions, we deployed 170 new 4G mobile sites across the island to expand coverage and increase 4G Mobile capacity in all 14 parishes. We also deployed 17 new 2G and 4G sites to improve coverage in many rural areas,” he added.

According to Digicel, it is seeing where customers in the most remote areas, with increased access to its 4G Mobile network, now have access to the Internet on their mobile phone.

Said Patrick King, distribution director at Digicel: “We are also seeing where more and more people across Jamaica are using smartphones and are realising that subscribing to a data plan means they can get more out of their Internet experience. In facilitating this demand, we launched our suite of Digicel devices — DL600 and DL700 — which is the best-selling affordable smartphones in Jamaica today. In fact, over the past few months, we have sold almost 100,000 of these devices.”

King added that the company has also ensured that customers have access to great value data plans, including Data Max, Data Plus and Data Lite, which start from as low as $70 for two days. Against this background, Digicel has seen an increase of over 200,000 subscribers on its 4G mobile network over the last quarter and an more than 70 per cent increase in subscribers using its data plans, he said.

In the UN State of Broadband 2013 report, Jamaica ranks 123 out of 170 countries worldwide in mobile broadband penetration (per 100 inhabitants). Additionally, the recently released findings from the Economic and Social Survey 2013 in Jamaica show that of the 920,000 Internet subscribers in Jamaica over the period 2009 to 2013, 786,680 are mobile subscribers.