Post Hurricane Customer Briefing

Posted October 9th, 2017

October 9, 2017 To our Valued C&W Business Customers: C&W Business would like to thank you for your patience and understanding as we work to fully restore services in the aftermath of the recent hurricanes. We want to assure you that we are working around the clock to restore your services to pre-Hurricane standards. We have mobilized our restoration teams in all affected markets and have assembled additional response teams from across our organization to expedite the process.  In this initial phase, our priority was to ensure the safety of our people, (thankfully we have accounted for all of our team members) followed by getting critical communications back up. As such we have focused on mobile connectivity to ensure people across our affected markets can communicate locally as well as internationally. Initial Assessment and Progress Report
  • Immediately after the hurricane, C&W set up a hub in the island of Antigua and deployed more than 100 technical experts to roll restoration efforts to support the affected islands.
  • Our robust data center infrastructure remained intact during the hurricane and continues to be fully operational.
  • C&W was the first operator to get cell sites up in Dominica and BVI so that customers on these islands could contact their friends and family after the hurricane.
  • However, a large portion of our aerial distribution network was destroyed by the hurricane, and our teams are working around the clock to repair.
  • To date, C&W has restored approximately 50% of service and coverage capacity across affected markets including Anguilla, Antigua, the British Virgin Islands (BVI), Dominica, the Dominican Republic, and the Turks & Caicos and about 85% of customers are able to successfully place calls or send and receive text messages, locally and internationally.
  • The Montserrat mobile network is 100 percent online, and mobile service is up and running in the drastically devastated island of Dominica.
  • The current focus is on critical communications and mobile restoration. Once this is established C&W will focus on fixed-line services, in the impacted countries.
  • While the Company is making headway, progress is impeded by the lack of electrical power, difficulty in accessing certain areas and severe damage to buildings, roads, and other facilities.
In addition to our technical restoration efforts, we have activated a significant humanitarian relief initiative for the affected markets. This includes:
  • Together with our employees and partners, we are airlifting daily shipments of essential relief supplies such as food, water personal care items as well as critical equipment such as generators.
  • We continue to distribute hot meals and clothing to people who had no access to their homes.
  • Following these efforts, we established the Cable & Wireless Charitable Foundation with seed funding of US$500k in response to the humanitarian crisis and have met the original target to raise an additional US$500k. Fundraising remains a priority for us as the needs are tremendous.
  • Many of our employees are donating via our internal voluntary salary deduction.
  • Our Liberty Global family has also launched a fundraising campaign including an ‘In-Givers campaign’ where they will match every dollar that employees across the globe contribute.
  • We launched a Text to Donate campaign across all our mobile markets to encourage customers, family, and friends to donate US$1, which Flow will match.
  • We also created an external site where the public can donate to the Foundation. — http://www.cwc.comn/donatecwcf.
The impact of the recent hurricanes has created restoration challenges, unlike anything we’ve seen.  As we continue to survey the infrastructural damage to determine the resourcing needs, in several instances, we are still being hampered by a lack of access to some parts of the affected islands. In summary, despite our herculean efforts, there is still much more to do.  With this in mind, we remain committed to keeping you apprised of our progress and as such will continue to provide you with regular updates. For the latest updates on our restoration efforts, please visit https://cwcbusiness.com/posthurricaneupdates/.  Should you have any additional questions please do not hesitate to reach out to our customer service center at supportcsc@cwc.com which is available 24x7x365.   Sincerely, C&W Business

Let's Connect!