LIME’s ‘rip and replace’ project interrupts mobile service
TELECOMMUNICA-TIONS provider LIME has recorded its highest increase in complaints over the last year.
Recently, the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) reported a 69 per cent increase in the number of complaints made about the company’s service connection for the quarter ending July.
The OUR blamed the increase on service quality and interruption of service.
The company’s ‘rip and replace’ mobile project “has resulted in some customers being temporarily unplugged from the system at nights, but overlapping coverage from other cell sites would have connected customers to the nearest site”, according to Elon Parkinson, LIME’s corporate communications manager.
LIME reckons that its US$78 million mobile upgrade investment to 4G technology, should see improved network quality for its customers by mid-2015.
The programme, launched in early March, has since benefited customers in Manchester and Clarendon. Customers in Kingston should also see some changes in service connections by the end of the year, according to Parkinson.
“Retrofitting a mobile network is a process…not all equipment is removed and replaced at the same time, it happens in stages,” he said.
Over the years, customers have been experiencing fluctuations in the service being provided by Lime. The utilities regulator has since written to the service provider, requesting information that will be used to monitor the improvement in the service quality issues.
In the July-September 2013 period, service interruption complaints grew 42 per cent, but declined 38 per cent in the last quarter of the year. The company also saw another two per cent decline in complaints related to service interruptions for the quarter ending March 2014. It climbed again by one per cent during the April-June 2014 period.