Telecom to Ensure Essential Services Continue Running for Fijians
Telecom Fiji, in light of the current global COVID-19 pandemic and as part of their Pandemic Management and Response Plan, is ensuring that its customers stay connected and all Telecom services and infrastructure remains operational. This includes providing services such as fibre backhaul to mobile operators to ensure they continue providing services to their customers.
“We will continue providing normal services to all customers as much as reasonably practicable without compromising health, safety and well-being of our staff and their families. We have already issued protective gear to our frontline and customer facing field operations teams and have already got certain sections of the company working from home,” said Telecom CEO, Charles Goundar.
“We have comprehensive protocols in place to protect our staff. We have also put in place precautionary measures for field operations teams to be mindful of when attending to complaints at customer premises. We are closely monitoring the situation and our workforce and have also issued internal advisories to staff on certain other measures such as mandatory self-isolation and social distancing if they or any of their family members return from abroad or those whose close family members are working in the health sector.”
“Telecom will work with our customers to adhere to any guidelines or policies they will be putting in place for entering and working at their premises. In addition, our field teams will be asking mandatory questions to customers to assess the situation prior to entering customer premises. We request for customer cooperation in this regard, as Telecom is committed to ensuring the well-being of not only our staff but also their families and community at large. These precautionary measures are necessary to prevent the widespread transmission of the virus.”
With much of the nation urged to practice social distancing and schools and universities preparing to shift to online learning, we are also encouraging customers to utilise our online and digital channels for any requests, payment of bills, lodging of complaints or any other service related matters.
To assist our customers during this challenging period, we are announcing relief packages to our residential, business and other customers in the remote areas effective from Wednesday 1st April 2020.
For Residential customers (next 3 months)
- Double data on all post-pay broadband plans includes ADSL, VDSL, Fibre and 4G. For example, a Connect Xcite customer paying $39 per month will now get additional 150GB totaling 300GB per month
- Free 5GB data per month for all prepay customers. For additional recharge for any denomination, customers get double data
- Waiver of reconnection fees for all broadband customers
- Free unlimited internet access at all Connect Wi-Fi hot spots nationwide
- All landline customers who already have 1GB complimentary data will now receive 5GB
- Free 200 minutes on-net calling for landline customers to all Telecom Fiji numbers and 10 cents a minute for off-net calls including mobile and most frequently called international destinations (Australia, New Zealand, USA, UK Canada, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, India, France, Germany)
For Business customers (for next 3 months)
- Double data on all broadband plans includes ADSL, VDSL, Fibre and 4G.
- Telecom is already in discussions with customers in the hotel industry and tourism sector to offer flexible payment arrangements on a case by case basis
- To facilitate and support staff working from home, Telecom will offer 30% additional bandwidth at no extra cost for our enterprise customers
- Reconnection fees will be waived for all post-pay voice and data customers
- For business customers going into work from home mode for their employees, Telecom will offer 60 days free access to WebEx enterprise web conferencing and collaboration platform
- Free 6 months access to Microsoft Teams for all enterprise customers
- Telecom will look at a work from home package for enterprises and their staff on a case by case basis to customize plans for individual businesses
For remote customers (until further notice)
- Free calls to all Telecom numbers and designated helpline numbers (including Vodafone and Digicel helpline numbers) from all maritime and remote communities, schools and government stations using satellite services. This includes customers in Rotuma
Telecom is also supporting organisations who are considering moving to working from home mode by offering free online tools. Together with our international partners, Cisco, we are giving free access to online collaboration tool WebEx via which employees can join in conference calls, do file sharing, etc. and work seamlessly as they are in office.
Furthermore, Telecom being a Cloud Service provider for Microsoft, is offering free 6 months Microsoft Teams access to our customers. Enterprise customers are requested to get in touch with their account managers to arrange for setting it up for their respective organisations.
Telecom would like to reassure its customers that it will continue monitoring the situation closely and take necessary precautionary measures to appropriately respond to the situation as it develops and provide regular updates to all our customers and other stakeholders.
“We are urging everyone to remain safe and practice precautionary measures in supporting our nation fight against COVID-19”.