Cable & Wireless upgrades to 3G system |11 March 2011

Cable & Wireless Seychelles (C&W) is now upgrading its services from a second generation (2G) network to a third generation (3G) one – which, as the name suggests, is a better and more flexible system.

C&W’s public relations manager Terry Servina said investigation of complaints they have received showed a pattern of clients in the town areas being the ones worst affected.

“We are working to ensure we can continue to meet the demands of our clients, and while the new and better network is being set up and tested we have at the same time to operate the older one, and at times the two conflict,” he said.

He added that extreme cases have meant clients having to reset their mobile phones, especially those who have two mobiles.

The company said it has noticed a very heavy use of unlimited packages bordering on abuse, where people make long calls for an hour or longer at a time.

“In finding an approach to solving those issues, we are relooking at the areas of heavy traffic to find out which type of service uses up more of our bandwidth so we can increase infrastructure to cater for it,” said Mr Servina.

“We will also increase the number of BTS emitters we have on the island in crucial places that now need new or increased coverage, such as Ile Perseverance, and also for the heavy traffic we anticipate for events such as Expo 2020 and the Indian Ocean Island Games.”

Customers who abuse unlimited mobile phone call packages will face a fair-use policy soon, Mr Servina said. A time-out system will be put in place to level the network field for clients who might want to make a call but cannot due to others abusing the system with long calls.

He said the company is pushing for the 3G network to be fully operational as soon as possible, though it will not specify a date for the moment.

By Ivan Hollanda