KINGSTON, Jamaica – FLOW Jamaica has reported that service to customers in four parishes has been disrupted as vandals have again caused major damage to its system.

In a release this morning, FLOW said there has been a major fibre cut on its system which has resulted in loss of service to thousands of business and residential customers in St Catherine, Clarendon, Manchester and St Elizabeth.

Some 9500 mobile, landline and broadband customers in the parishes have been affected by the outage.

“Vandals continue to attack our systems. It’s an issue that our technical teams have to deal with on a daily basis. However, the cut last night has caused widespread disruptions. Apparently the vandals have again gone in search of copper and have targeted our system”, said Gail Abrahams, Director of Corporate Communications and Stakeholder Relationships.

Currently, customers including businesses that use point of sale machines are unable to use voice and data services. 

“This issue has gone on too long. It costs our business millions of US dollars every year to repair and replace fibre cut by vandals. It’s also debilitating to our customers including those in the essential services because it affects the services we provide to them. We are again calling on government to intervene. It’s a major issue of maintaining a critical public utility,” said Abrahams.

FLOW has also assured customers that their technical crews have started restoration work. The telecommunications company says full service should be completed by early afternoon.