The C&W transmission system suffered some damage from the impact of Hurricane Ivan, Mr. Bryan said.  The bulk of that damage has since been repaired.

"We have 9,000 faults outstanding," he said.  A massive effort is under way to solve the problems being experienced by those customers with faulty service.

The company has about 500,000 landline customers and more than 600,000 mobile customers in total.  "For a couple days we got up to about 25,000 faults," Mr. Bryan said.  "That did not last long.  It was mainly associated with the loss of electricity."

Hurricane Ivan ravaged the island on September 10 and 11, causing $13 billion in damage to agriculture, roads, and houses according to preliminary government estimates.  The high winds caused substantial damage to the country's electricity supply network.

ADDITIONAL STAFF

To deal with the emergency, the company took on additional staff, recruiting contract workers locally and drafting in personnel from other islands.  "We have 247 technicians along with 25 engineers and managers resolving this," the executive said.  The core repair work was completed within four weeks after Hurricane Ivan hit.

The repair work involves targeting problem areas, "getting a lot of people in, and crushing it in one blow," Mr. Bryan said.  "We are looking for that approach to mop the last areas."

The C&W system generally stood up well during the hurricane, Mr. Miller said.  "We were prepared."

Still, the company did learn some lessons.

There was a problem with Internet access after the hurricane hit Cayman as the fibre-optic cable used for Jamaica's external transmissions was damaged.  There was a full recovery of service within three days, said the C&W director of corporate communications, Errol K. Miller.

SATELLITE ROUTE

An alternative satellite route for Internet traffic has since been established to avoid the heavy dependence on cable routing.

Additionally, a serious problem developed at one location in Mandeville related to flooding.  Mr. Bryan said, "We are dealing with it now."

Because of the overall success in dealing with these specific problems another problem emerged.  Mr. Miller said, "Some people were affected and we could have communicated more effectively with them."

The company is also facing a new problem in the aftermath of the hurricane.  In the cleaning up efforts, some telephone cables are being damaged by trees being cut too close to them and rubbish being burned under them.

"We are going to finish our repair work soon," Mr. Bryan said.  "But while we are repairing things, some people are damaging them again."

http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20041027/business/business2.html