Copper thieves cause Internet heartbreak

Residents of Padmore, Coopers Hill, Rock Hall and other communities in the rural outreaches of Red Hills are at their wits’ end, frustrated by frequent disruptions in Internet service caused by the theft of copper cable.

The latest theft occurred last Thursday night into Friday morning, triggering a desperate plea from Enid Coates, a resident of Swain Spring.

“Over the last three weeks, our district, along with several surrounding communities, has suffered from the hands of petty thieves who have been cutting the copper wires, leaving our communities without landline or Internet service,” she said in a letter to The Gleaner.

“With persons working from home and students who do online classes, we are left to suffer for weeks without these essential services.

Coates’ appeal resonates among householders and business people in many communities across Jamaica whose access to telephony and the Internet is at the mercy of copper thieves.

On Tuesday, technicians from provider Flow busily sought to restore the service.

Technician Andrew Anderson explained that the telecommunications company is working to replace its copper network with the more technologically advanced fibre-optic alternative.

“Flow is on a mission to get its fibre network in place and working before sending its technicians to recover the copper wiring, but these guys (thieves) are ahead and they are taking out all the copper,” was his summation of the situation.

Over in Padmore, residents were only too eager to vent their frustration about the lack of service that has left them cut off from friends and relatives.

“It a affect me deep, bredda, because a the only likkle thing me use fi get mi WhatsApp message them,” declared Patrick Satchell, who began voicing his discontent even before the news team’s vehicle stopped.

A trucker, Satchell explained that he often runs out of data while on the road and looks forward to catching up with email and WhatsApp messages from customers when he gets home. That’s critical for preparing his logistics plans before hitting the road the following day.

However, that is not the worst of it, as his wife, a teacher, has also been hamstrung.

“She just get a job and is the Internet she has to work, and just the time when she fi start do assessments, there goes the Internet cut off,” Satchell fumed.

Directly across the road, Claudette Maitland stood at her gate awaiting the return of her husband and lamenting the impact of Internet disruption on her household. She couldn’t wait to tell The Gleaner.

Her daughter usually communicates with the children through video calls via the WhatsApp platform and the absence of the service has really hit home.

“The pickney (grandchildren) them miserable because them would usually watch them likkle programmes on them tablet, so it affect me and them bad,” said Maitland.

“My little granddaughter supposed to do some assessment and is on it (Internet) them going to do it, and if you put on data, it doesn’t work in the house and you have to walk all over the place and even go on the road to get likkle pick-up.”

Nearby Maitland’s gate, shopkeeper Hopeton Perkins had a sign on his business place advertising the sale of Flow credit. The shop was closed, on the sixth coronavirus no-movement day, and he chatted with Dudley Satchell before breaking his conversation.

“Right now, it doesn’t make any sense you have a mobile phone if you are going to do business because you can’t get a call because there is no service,” he said.

Enid Coates’ 19-year-old son is due to sit certification exams via the Internet in two weeks’ time and she is concerned that Flow will not have the fibre-optic cables up and running in time.

Caring for her ailing 80-year-old mother, Coates dreads the thought of needing to seek medical assistance in an emergency.

Director of corporate communications at Flow, Kayon Wallace, explained that the decision to replace the copper wiring with fibre-optic cables in the short term would depend on the extent of the damage sustained.

christopher.serju@gleanerjm.com