Falklands : FIRS GO ONE TO ONE WITH JUSTIN McPHEE (18/10/11)
Submitted by Falkland Islands News Network (Juanita Brock) 22.10.2011 (Article Archived on 05.11.2011)
Stacey Bragger spoke to Cable & Wireless’ South Atlantic Ltd Falklands CEO Mr Justin McPhee (JMP), who updated us on a number of projects the company are progressing including the free internet usage trial and upgrades to the mobile phone network.
FIRS GO ONE TO ONE WITH JUSTIN McPHEE (18/10/11)
A Report for FIRS by Stacey Bragger (SB)
Intro by J. Brock (FINN)
Stacey Bragger spoke to Cable & Wireless’ South Atlantic Ltd Falklands CEO Mr Justin McPhee (JMP), who updated us on a number of projects the company are progressing including the free internet usage trial and upgrades to the mobile phone network.
Firstly Stacey Bragger asked Mr McPhee about how the night time free internet usage was doing.
JMP: We’ve had a look at the statistics from the network and we can see how many people are making use of the free night downloads. Certainly over the two months that has run over half of our customers have made use of that facility; and both months we actually provided 1.5 terra-bites (1500GB) of free data. This is a significant amount of data that people have been able to download and it seems to have been very successful.
SB: have the Company had any thoughts on whether the trial will continue?
JMP: I am pleased to announce that we are actually going to extend the free nights-on by another three months from the end of this month. Possibly we could commit to extending it longer but at the moment, there is still a little bit of regulatory uncertainty with the government. We are not still fully sure where discussions with the Government are going. So at the moment I have extended the trial for another three months and we will update customers once we have reached the end of that period.
SB: So customers using it haven’t detracted from the amount of use it gets during the day?
JMP: No. There has been a bit of a change in the traffic as you would expect but customers have spoken to us and explained that they are taking advantage of the window to download large pieces of software, update their PC and turning on their windows updates for out of hours which is why we launched the trial and are pleased to see the people are using it.
SB: Last time you were in you discussed the rolling out of the mobile network. How is work developing with that?
JMP: That’s progressing very well. The team have started some of the initial site preparations for the initial base stations out in camp. Sussex Mountain work has already been undertaken at Malo Hills there is work going to start on the West and we’ve actually got the first engineers who arrived on site a couple of weeks ago and the bulk of the new equipment has actually just arrived at Mare Harbour on the ship that’s just got in. So over the next two months a lot of work will be put into creating the network. There will be a little bit of disruption which we will be announcing through FIRS and other media. We regret the disruption but obviously it is part of installing the new network. We have to upgrade some of the existing infrastructures for that. We are still hoping that by early December that will all be completed and the new network will be launched and in service.
SB: You sort of rolling it out at once or which areas will be online first?
JMP: I think there will be a number of stages. We will be finalising the detail as soon as the equipment is sorted out. But I think you will see a number of the bigger sites come on earlier just for the existing services and the edge element and the data element will be added later on. That requires a bit more work to be done in the core site here in Stanley and a lot more testing before we launch that.
SB: Are there any other infrastructure at the moment that the company are doing?
JMP: We’ve got a few new things coming along. Or have already happened. We have recently done a bandwidth upgrade installed with upgraded equipment installed in the Earth Station. It is a 20% bandwidth upgrade which actually took place at the end of September. Customers have been making use of that particularly during the night time download window. We have also just decided that we will follow-up feedback from some customers that we will be upgrading some customers’ Horizon and CWFI mailboxes from 50 Megs to 200 Megs after a number of customers have requested an upgrade. We have recently upgraded the servers that support the mail network so we can supply significantly more storage space to customers and during November we are also hoping to launch an e-mail alert scheme for broadband usage where customers will get an e-mail alert at 80% and at 100% of their monthly allowance, excluding the night time window, so that will alert customers. There might be a slight delay due to what customers are doing at the time. There will be information provided when we fully announce that – along with instructions on how to sign up for the service. It won’t be a replacement for customers to regularly check their usage via the web portal but it certainly will help customers manage their usage and understand when they are approaching their limit. Hopefully everyone will find that useful.
SB: In the past I think some people commented the web portal could be unreliable in terms of changing data.
JMP: initially when the portal was put in place there was a delay in terms of the speed the system updated the usage and also it wasn’t broken down into an hourly usage. Some time ago we upgraded the portal to produce hourly usage reports and we sorted out the time of day issue so it reports accurately in the same 24 hour period that you are in. We have seen significantly less usage accrue since that happened. Obviously we are still providing free download managers for customers should they require them. Quite a few customers have taken us up on that. If anyone does require the download monitoring please contact customer services on 131 and they can get a copy.
SB: Is the bandwidth increase part of the natural progression?
JMP: Absolutely. We continue to monitor the network in terms of internet usage. We monitor that in virtually real time. It’s reviewed by the team at C&W it is really part of making sure there is always sufficient bandwidth there for customer requirements during the day. Typically we see monitoring that with these upgrades that we are not reaching the position where we are Maxing out the international circuit during the daytime.
SP: Also Cable & Wireless previously announced that they would be sponsoring a student and I think you’ve made a decision.
JMP: We have interviewed a number of students. We have sponsored students in the past and have invested heavily in training locals. I, myself have benefited. But we felt there is work to be done on guiding our young people as they make choices about their further education and if they want a better career in the Falklands it’s important that they consider what subjects they are studying and whether that has an application here. We advertised some time ago that we would like to sponsor a student that was studying either or wants to study engineering, IT, Business studies or finance and we had interviewed those and the successful applicant will be provided with an additional free flight and on the job paid work experience with us each time they return home for the holidays. We have been through that process in conjunction with the Education Department. We are pleased to say that we have awarded this year’s sponsorship to Julian Yon, who is currently at Peter Symonds studying a number of “A” Levels he is hoping will lead towards a computer science degree. We are very pleased to welcome him aboard and we look forward to him coming back and working with us during his holidays.
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