A group of people purchasing cellular telephones inside Courts Jamaica Ltd. in Cross Roads, Kingston, one of Digicel's branches in the Corporate Area. - Michael SloleyDIGICEL JAMAICA, the new cellular telephone company which began operations here last Thursday, said yesterday that it was trying to replenish its supply of handsets as a surge in sales over the weekend has left some of its dealers across the island out of stock.
The telecommunication company's chief operating officer, Seamus Lynch, said supplies should have been available at those dealers again yesterday, but with the "phenomenal response" to its products and services, the company has brought forward some of its overseas orders and about 30,000 to 40,000 handsets were expected to arrive in Jamaica this week. "Supplies should not be an issue," said Mr. Lynch, adding that "we have huge stocks coming in."
Mr. Lynch said the brisk sales experienced was not concentrated in the usually busy Kingston metropolitan area, but extended to its dealer outlets islandwide, with the Panasonic GD52 and the Nokia 3210 and 3310, the more economical handsets, taking the lead, although sales of telephones at the high end also went well.
At the same time that it has been experiencing a high demand for its products, Mr. Lynch said Digicel has continued to expand its network with another 70 cell sites expected to be installed by the end of July. Digicel constructed 125 sites before its launch, and an additional 70 would put Digicel way ahead of Cable & Wireless Jamaica (C&W), which plans to expand its network coverage by increasing its cellular sites to 133 by September, this year, and add another 40 to make it 173 by February 2002.
The sales notwithstanding, Digicel would not say what was the level of its customer base in the first few days of its operation as a direct competitor to the still dominant voice carrier C&W. Mr. Lynch said they were not yet prepared to disclose those figures, and would not do so at least for a couple of weeks.
However, the chief operating officer has used the opportunity to appeal to its new customers to be "patient with us" as the high level of subscription, coming as it did in the first few days, could result in a load on the company's call centre.
In a document released to the media at a pre-launch function last week, Digicel said it has spent the last year putting together a meticulous plan to forecast the future capacity needs of its network in order to assure network expandability and scalability. It said the technology that Digicel has chosen was easily and quickly expandable, and contingency plans were in place should customers' demand exceed expectations.
The company, which is using the Global System of Mobiles (GSM) as the foundation of its cellular operations, said it would offer 80 per cent coverage of the island at its launch, and would gradually upgrade the system in an ongoing process.
