$30m injected in Digicel Fiji network upgrade

Digicel Fiji, your data network, today announced a massive $30m network upgrade.

Digicel Fiji CEO, Farid Mohammed said; “We simply want to give our customers the best mobile experience we can. This multi-million dollar investment in our network at a time when the country is surrounded with Covid-19 issues is a great step for Fiji. We are committed on building the best in class network that will improve coverage, internet speeds and the data experience for our customers.”

“In the first phase of upgrade, we have invested more than $14m which started late 2019. The benefits of this $14m project completion sees Digicel adding additional data capacity using the latest LTE technology. We have upgraded most of our sites in the main centers to LTE Advance Pro Technology (Pre-5G) in Suva, Nausori, Nadi and Lautoka. We have also increased our LTE coverage in maritime areas and Vanua Levu.”

The recent Covid-19 impacted everyone, more so during the lockdowns in Suva and Lautoka when many companies had to resort to working from home, this saw the Digicel network observe more than 40% increase in data traffic demand.

Mr Mohammed stated; “We were able to cater for this demand, thanks to the first phase of the upgrade. But in order to meet future data demands we are investing a further $16m to further improve customer experience.”

“The next phase of this year’s upgrades are to further improve LTE coverage across Fiji. We target to upgrade almost all of our remaining sites to LTE.”

“We are committed to deliver an amazing network experience for our customers, we have put great effort in developing our network in order to continue meeting your changing needs for seamless streaming and downloading videos, using mobile applications and playing games. We thank you for taking this journey with us,” commented Mr Mohammed.

“These upgrades will complement our government’s investment in the Submarine Cable as well as their Digital Transformation Programme known as digitalFiji, which is a programme to implement a number of Government applications, enhance the overall ICT infrastructure and build and develop capacity in digital transformation in the government. One of the key goals of digitalFIJI is to make more key Government services available online and through mobile applications – Digicel’s network upgrade will enable remote communities to use the latest technology and enjoy the same experience and be on par with the rest of the country,” concluded Farid.

 

Photo supplied