Telecommunications company FLOW says Barbadians are still holding on to their services, albeit on a scaled back basis, even though many of them have become unemployed or underemployed as a result of the dreaded COVID-19 pandemic.
Marilyn Sealy, Senior Manager of Communications for the Southern Caribbean, told reporters that during the height of the pandemic the company started working closely with customers who were having difficulty in paying their telecoms bills.
She explained that special payment plans were put in place, and these were mostly taken up by those in the tourism industry, which came to a standstill last year when international travel plummeted.
“At the height of the pandemic we would have seen some of our customers, especially those working in the tourism sector who may have lost their jobs, obviously having difficulties in paying. We continue to work with our customers to ensure that we are able to keep them connected,” she said.
“In some instances some customers opted to scale down what they had just to have the basic service – basic television, basic landline and that kind of thing. But we continue to work with them. Even now we tell our customers ‘if you are having an issue or difficulties paying reach out to us and we will work with you’, and that continues,” she said.
Sealy was not in a position to say what the level of delinquency was or what services were mostly being affected.
However, she pointed out that once there was an ease in the impact of the pandemic on the island and people were back at work, the majority were keen to make good on their bill payments.
“For the most part we have seen of course once there was a lull in the pandemic we saw an increase in the payment of bills and that continues,” she said.
FLOW’s Country Manager for Barbados Desron Bynoe gave the assurance that the company would continue to ensure that individuals and businesses remained connected. “We have come to that realization that connectivity is ultra important in these circumstances, so we are constantly looking at ways in which we can add value and make things a lot easier for our customers.”
They were responding to questions from reporters during a media briefing on Thursday, where they discussed the completion of the roll-out of the company’s fibre to the home network (FTTH).
In its review for the quarter ending March 31, 2021, FLOW’s parent company Cable & Wireless (C&W) reported that it had recorded an overall loss across its Caribbean operations.
“COVID-19 negatively impacted our operations during 2020 and has continued into the three months ended March 31, 2021, due to resulting lockdowns, moratoriums, cancellation of live sporting events and mobility, travel, and tourism restrictions across many of the markets in which we operate. These factors collectively resulted in negative impacts to revenue, particularly within our B2B and mobile operations,” the company said in its financial report.
The report noted that the decrease it experienced in revenue from “residential mobile interconnect, inbound roaming, equipment sales and other” was primarily attributable to the net effect of an organic decrease in inbound roaming fees, primarily related to travel restrictions, an increase in interconnect revenue and lower volumes of handset sales due to the temporary closure or reduced hours at physical stores, as a result of COVID-19-related lockdowns.
It also noted that the decrease in residential mobile revenue was due to lower average numbers of mobile subscribers as a result of “COVID-19 impacts”. (marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb)
