BY LIONEL TAORAO
FREELANCE JOURNALIST, ULAWA, MAKIRA/ULAWA PROVINCE
Mr Chris Teteha’a, a community elder from Ripo Village on Ulawa Island, is calling on Our Telekom to address the communication issues caused by the breakdown of the recently upgraded Ripo mobile tower. Our Telekom customers relying on the Ripo mobile tower have been experiencing communication problems and are forced to travel to the Su’u Moli mobile tower, located approximately 10 kilometres away, for reliable communication.
“Instead of communication getting more reliable and efficient from the recent upgrade last year, it is getting worse than was expected and expensive for some of us who have to travel by truck for communication”, concerned Chris Teteha’a said.
Despite having reported the issue to Our Telekom several times, no action has been taken to address the problem. Mr Teteha’a said the upgraded Ripo Tower, which was upgraded from 2G to 3G with a new generator, broke down after only one or two weeks of operation.
“We have reported the problem to the responsible people in Our Telekom company many times but it seems that they are ignoring our request and failed to provide the service we have expected from them’, he added.
Residents of Ahia, Mwaraja, Ripo, and Mwajoa who rely on the Ripo Our Telekom mobile tower for communication are having difficulty accessing reliable and efficient service due to the negligence of Our Telekom. Mr Teteha’a and business operators are calling on the company to urgently address the communication issues.
“This reflects that Our Telekom Company is not providing a reliable service for their customers on Ulawa Island, especially on our side,” he added.
However, Our Telekom technical team responsible for the Ripo mobile tower has confirmed to ISLES MEDIA that there is a power issue at the site, causing the tower to be down and the surrounding areas to have no network coverage.
“Our Telekom ‘power team staff’ will travel to the site next week to attend to the fault issue.” The Statement by Our Telekom confirmed.
