It is early yet, but Cable and Wireless in Anguilla is moving to further safeguard its services to the people of Anguilla against the threats posed by the hurricane season.
“We take this whole thing about disaster preparedness very seriously…in terms of being able to keep our customers communicating with their friends and loves ones… and our responsibility to Government to ensure that we have a network that is functioning and available,” said Chief Executive, Sutcliffe Hodge.

Stott (in cable chamber), Sutcliffe Hodge at top

He told the media on Tuesday, March 7, that every year around this time the company took deliberate strides to reduce the likelihood of damage to its network. “For example, we want to make sure that our internet service is up and working so if our customers have standby power they would be able to track the movement of a hurricane,” he said. He noted that about 85 percent of the company’s network was placed underground and it was therefore unlikely to have a situation where there would be total outage. He recalled that a number of customers were very pleased that the internet service had stayed up during the passage of Hurricane Lenny.
Mr. Hodge stated that the company was also ensuring that its mobile communications service would stay up. In the case of fixed lines, customers are being encouraged, where possible, to take the service underground from the pole so as to miminise any disruption of service. If the network is underground where they are, they should contact Cable and Wireless about providing such a protected feed to them or making their connection more robust as the case may be. He said that the company could provide backup power for mobile phones such as extra batteries and boosters.
Vice President for Network Services, Larry Stott, said that unlike other competitors, the Cable and Wireless mobile communications towers had stood up during recent hurricane activity in Grenada and the Cayman Islands. “Our towers are generally designed to survive winds of about 139 miles an hour or 18 metres per second… and just beyond that,” he said.
Mr. Stott said that in order to safequard the mobile service, the connections were being fed to the cell sites by underground routes – from the main office in the Valley to the rest of the island. “We are actually completing a project to install fibre-optic cable to all of the towers to ensure that the connections are maintained during a hurricane,” he went on. “We have noted that the antennas …are not capable of withstanding the higher speeds of a hurricane and the fibre-optic links may fall off the tower or push out of alignment so we are taking this step now to ensure that the majority of our sites are fed underground by [the start of] the hurricane season.”
Stott also said that work was ongoing to have fixed telephone lines installed underground. He noted that the company had discussed a programme with disaster preparedness personnel and the various utility providers whereby customers would be encouraged “to install their drop wires whether from the pole or from other distribution points to their homes underground to ensure that in the event of a storm the lines are more secure.”

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