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Cable & Wireless Jamaica (CWJ) has recently brought 23 new cell sites into service and upgraded 19 existing sites at a cost of $482 million, the company stated yesterday.
The new sites, which became operational on a phased basis between November 2005 and March 2006, are located in the parishes of Kingston, St. James, St. Andrew, St. Catherine, St. Thomas, St. Ann and Hanover. In addition to expanding its mobile network footprint, CWJ has also upgraded 19 existing cell sites, adding 850 Mhz overlays to improve "in-building" coverage in the parishes of St. James, Manchester, Clarendon, St. Elizabeth and St. Andrew. The company will be spending a further $298 million to activate another overlay and 9 additional sites by the end of April. In September 2005, CWJ's CEO Rodney Davis said that for the remaining months of the 2005/06 fiscal year, the company would be spending at least $500 million improving and extending its mobile network. This followed on the $3 billion that had been spent adding 150 new cell sites and improving the 850 Mhz overlays on 130 sites in the previous 18 months. David Reavley, CWJ's senior vice-president mobile said more than $3.5 billion had been invested in the mobile network in the last two years to improve service. He also indicated that sections of the network serving Montego and Mandeville had received priority attention in the last two months. Areas such as Paradise, Mango Walk, Brandon Hill, Adelphi, Bogue and Catherine Hall are now enjoying improved mobile service. In addition, another three sites should become operational in Montego Bay by the end of the month. In Mandeville, significant improvements have been made to CWJ's "in-building" coverage with the extension of the 850 Mhz overlay to cell sites in Caledonia, Newport and George's Valley. The overlay will also be extended to the Porus cell site by the end of March. http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20060405/business/business4.html |