Digicel launches new service

By Deidre Fanene 01 July 2016, 12:00AM

Digicel Samoa has launched another first for Samoa, introducing Long Term Evolution (L.T.E) broadband technology yesterday.

Chief Executive Officer of Digicel, Rory Condon, said Digicel is excited about the network.

 “It’s a huge investment for us here in Samoa and it’s the biggest thing that we have done since the launch of 3G back in 2012,” he said.

“Long Term Evolution is a fourth generation mobile technology and it is the very latest in mobile technology delivering world class speeds.

“The fastest speed and in fact the speed that we can deliver are up to 10 times greater than what you were having yesterday on 3G, so it’s a significantly bigger change in the way that we deliver data.”

According to Mr. Condon, L.T.E is all about delivering data at faster speed with mobile handset to laptops, tablets. Digicel is also using it to deliver broadband to homes and businesses.

 “It will have faster downloads and uploads and it enables you to use much more sophisticated mobile apps,” he said.

“You can watch video streaming without any buffering so very easily and you can live stream your favourite events and much, much faster sharing on your favourite social media and while on the go.

“So it’s a fantastic development for us here in Digicel but not only for Digicel but for Samoa as well.”

So where is it available?

 “As of today, L.T.E is available across Apia but also in Salelologa and Tuasivi as well. But we won’t stop there, we will shortly be rolling it out across the villages and across the northwest coast of Upolu all the way to the airport.”

So what do you need to use L.T.E?

 “In order to get L.T.E you need three things which are L.T.E capable handset, an L.T.E sim card and you need an L.T.E coverage area and if you have all of those then compatible handset will connect automatically to the L.T.E network.

“They will also be able to use the 3G network at 3G speeds in places where L.T.E services are not yet available.”

Asked what this means for Samoa, the C.E.O said the L.T.E network is the culmination of four years of hard work.

“In Samoa we’ve invested over 50million tala in the last four years in our communication and infrastructure,” he said.

“In fact since, we started here in Samoa, we’ve invested over 170 million tala and so L.T.E is all part of our commitment to being at the forefront of developing the Samoan communication infrastructure.

“We want to bring more and more Samoan people online and in fact we want to bridge the digital divide and we know that by increasing the rate of penetration of internet use it will help to improve education, improve the learning of our children and help to drive economic opportunities, generate jobs and help Samoa’s economy further in the future.”

Mr. Condon also announced the opening of their new retail shop at the Frankie’s Mall at Fugalei.

 “It really represents and further underscores our commitment to Samoa. It’s all about getting closer to our customers and to where our customers live and shop.

“It’s about being in the heart of Apia and so I am really excited about this.”

By Deidre Fanene 01 July 2016, 12:00AM
Samoa Observer

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