6 minute read
Interview - Flow Turks and Caicos
ING
ACROSS TURKS AND CAICOS
Sustainable Business Magazine speaks to Joanne Missick, Country Manager at FLOW Turks & Caicos, about the company’s longevity, upgrades to essential microwave towers, and their passion for education.
By Daniel Baksi
Having maintained a presence in the
islands for over 123 years, from its launch on January 31, 1898, FLOW Turks and Caicos is a stalwart of the telecommunications industry. Initially trading as Cable and Wireless, the company is now owned by Liberty Latin America, operating under the FLOW consumer brand. From the telegraph to superfast broadband, the company has always been at the forefront of telecoms in the Caribbean, and continues today as the sole full-service provider for the Caribbean, establishing itself as the go-to provider for business and enterprise customers, providing fully tailored communication solutions to achieve efficient businesses growth.
A GROWING PRESENCE
“For us here in Turks and Caicos, we’re one of the longest-operating business units,” says Joanne Missick, Country Manager at FLOW Turks & Caicos. “We were the only operating carrier from inception right up until 2007. We have over 22,000 Mobile customers and over 6000 broadband customers, with roughly a 70% share of the fixed services in Turks and Caicos. We’re not satisfied with that, however. We’re currently investing another $1.1 million in the roll-out and expansion of our next-generation Fiberto-the-home (FTTH) technology. Broadband is a market in which the TCI is seeing clear growth, and there remains room for far greater penetration over the coming years. By the
end of this year, we expect to have added close to an additional 5000 homes. That’s a huge investment, and a lot of work to be completed within a short time, but we’re right on track to deliver.”
FLOW is committed to spreading its investment right across the TCI. “The main work is being done on the main island of Providenciales,” says Ms. Missick. “There are a series of new homes in a Millennium Heights development, but several months ago we didn’t have service in that location. We’re also 80% completed in Grand Turk – which means an additional 20% to be completed, and we’re going to be completely fiber in South Caicos in another three weeks. In total, we’re adding 13,000 households located in areas that were previously un-developed. As new neighborhoods continue to be built, we go in and make sure that the infrastructure is there to provide services. We’ll be looking to provide services for those additional customers soon, driving forward, extending our pattern of year over year growth, and in order to fulfil our goal of being completely fiber throughout the entire TCI.”
MAKING INVESTMENTS
As part of a persistent focus on reliable service, FLOW is currently conducting upgrades to all its main microwave towers. “We have four critical towers,” explains Ms. Missick. “The first is in Stubbs Road, which feeds to another in Benbarra, in North Caicos. That in turn feeds to another in South Caicos, and from there on to Grand Turk. After Hurricane Irma hit the TCI in 2017, these towers were severely destroyed, and their power integrity dramatically reduced. Unlike our competitors, we were fortunate enough to be able to stay live from a service perspective, even though the infrastructure itself was a little shaky. Our mobile service was up throughout, although we did lose some of our landline services, underlining the critical need for upgrades and refurbishment.”
The works, having been approved for completion this year, are now well underway. “In this project alone, we’re investing over $3 million,” says Ms. Missick. “It’s a substantial sum, with which we’ll be able to achieve what’s needed to increase capacity, and to empower our own service delivery with world-class technology. The microwave towers will be fitted with bigger antennas, guaranteeing increased bandwidth and capacity for our customers across the TCI, including all the sister islands. We’re also learning our lessons from Irma by improving the resilience of the towers, which have been designed to be able to withstand the force of
a category-five hurricane. Last year, the frequency of storms gave us considerable cause for concern. Having now taken these steps, it puts us in a far stronger position.”
COMMUNITY FOCUS
Giving back to communities in the TCI is an integral element within FLOW’s long-term vision for the nation. “We have an adopted primary school: Oseta Jolly Primary, located on Provinciales,” says Ms. Missick. “It was one of a number of schools severely destroyed by Hurricane Irma. They’ve been busy rebuilding from that setback, creating a new computer lab, to which we donated over $100,000 in ICT equipment. We also donated $5,000 to the HJ Robinson High School, and we’re the main sponsors of The National – the local high-school sports meet in Turks and Caicos. More broadly, we’ve had more than 7000 students in the TCI benefit from our virtual online learning platform, FLOW Study, which proved critical during the pandemic. Through the FLOW Scholarship program, we’ve also invested more than $500k to educate top performers throughout the TCI, and we recently saw our final two pupils graduate from high school. It’s a moment of which we are particularly proud.”
“Education is one of our top priorities,” says Ms. Missick. “In the past, we’ve heard from a lot of parents how a lack of access to internet has hampered participation and learning. But it’s the youth who are our future, the future of the TCI, and it’s for that reason that we’ve made them our focus. We’ve installed free high-speed internet for displaced students at the Enid Capron Primary school, and free public internet hotspot for students in the island of South Caicos. Likewise, within all the government schools within the TCI, FLOW provides internet for free – part of our goal to ensure that every child can receive a good education. That way, students can stay back after class for research purposes, to use the facilities available in their school. Of course, the government also runs programs to facilitate access to education, but it’s nevertheless on us as a good corporate citizen to further assist young people. It’s our hope that they in turn will then be able to give back when they’re older.”
ONE VOICE
“In the future, we will continue to upgrade,” says Ms. Missick. “Our customers are our lifeblood, and we’ll always support initiatives to drive growth and deliver network improvements. During the pandemic, we’ve managed to increase our efficiency and kickstart a digital transformation overnight, whether in terms of allowing our customers to pay their bills online, or the setting up of our virtual WhatsApp stores. These innovations will now shape a continuous strategy, as we look to bring in a suite of new products, roll out fiber to the home, and deliver the higher speeds, faster downloads, and smooth streaming that our customers demand and deserve.”
“In everything we do, our employees are our number one asset. Their ongoing support has been overwhelming, particularly given everything that has happened over the last year and a half, and the various challenges the pandemic has posed. They’re a large part of where we are now, and have been critical to our success as a company. Looking ahead, we have to build on that, continue working with them to innovate and prosper – both in the TCI and across the region – and to further our message of One Caribbean, One Team, One Voice.” c
