FLOW to meet with OUR over complaints today

The Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) is to meet with the leadership of telecommunications company, FLOW, today amid what it says is a sharp increase in the number of customer complaints against the entity.

In a statement Wednesday, the OUR said the complaints relate to overall poor quality of service, service disruptions, dropped calls, disputed charges and billing matters.

The utility regulator says it will request actions and remedies from the company in response to these complaints.

The OUR says it has seen a 74 per cent increase in the number of service interruption complaints from FLOW customers over the April-June quarter this year over the similar quarter last year.

It says the increase represents the highest movement in service interruption contacts over a three-month period.

In a statement yesterday, FLOW chided the OUR for announcing through the media that it wanted to meet with company.

According to FLOW, the OUR made an "unwarranted, sensational announcement" that could damage the company's reputation.

FLOW also said the 74 per cent increase in customer complaints since the start of the year as cited by the OUR translates to 69 additional reports since the start of the year, compared with the similar period last year.

However, the company says the figure could have been worse had it not been effectively managing some of the threats to service delivery.

According to FLOW, the inconvenience being experienced by customers is because of increased incidents of cable theft, damage and vandalism.

FLOW said it has already spent $107 million for this year with another $45 million budgeted for additional repairs and replacement of cables damaged via theft or vandalism.

FLOW said it is looking forward to meeting with the OUR.

At the same time it has called for the government and the regulators to take urgent steps to make the necessary legislative amendments to deter cable theft and vandalism.