BAHAMAS: ALIV Prepared for the 2018 Hurricane Season

#Nassau, June 12, 2018 – Bahamas – The 2018 Hurricane Season officially began on June 1^st, 2018 with a total of 13 named proposed storms out of which seven are expected to become hurricanes.  ALIV has since activated its 2018 Hurricane Season Preparation Mode and at the best of its ability tested and implemented Hurricane Preparedness initiatives in New Providence as well as all Family Islands where ALIV has successfully been launched.

Chief ALIV Officer (CAO) Damian Blackburn said much like the previous season, ALIV and its employees all over The Bahamas stand ready to ensure ALIV subscribers stay connected with friends and family should the unfortunate occur.

“We have ensured that this hurricane season we have teams stationed in all islands where ALIV is currently operational as well as customer care teams that persons can contact should they need assistance during a storm.  We are aware however that as prepared as we may be when these unfortunate incidents take place, anything is possible.  We want persons to prepare well in advance, buy the necessary items listed by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), pay close attention to alerts/warnings, top up your wallet and make sure your devices are fully charged,” he said.  “At this time, I would also like to thank all of the heroes on the ALIV team in advance that have been preparing and who continue to assist throughout the hurricane season.”

Chief ALIV Innovator Stephen Curran has also given the assurance that ALIV is well equipped to face any storm if it were to affect The Bahamas.

“We’ve got 229 live sites all through The Bahamas, of which 90 percent have a backup diesel generator or a fuel cell which will give power to the cell site if the grid goes offline, which happens quite a lot during hurricanes.  Also, we have added extra batteries to two thirds of the cell sites giving us extra time just in cases the generator doesn’t start,” he said.  “We’ve also worked on a program to improve transmission resilience which is how we get connectivity from the cell sites back to the main switching centers.  Finally, God forbid there is a catastrophe where the full core network in Nassau is destroyed, the second building in Grand Bahama can run the entire network.”

As it relates to the Information Technology (IT) aspect of ALIV’s readiness, Chief ALIV Solutions Architect Dwayne Davis says this year protocol has slightly been changed due to additional islands but ALIV is ready.

“For the 2017 hurricane season ALIV was impacted minimally given that New Providence was not affected and that the ALIV network – at that time – was not rolled out in the southern Family Islands,” he said.  “So for 2018 it is going to be different and our plan is even more robust taking into consideration recovery not only for all of the main islands but the southern islands as well.  This year with a combination of IT Operations and engineering we are ready for the 2018 Hurricane Season.”

ALIV subscribers are reminded that should they require assistance, they can dial #611 on their ALIV device free of charge, no matter the hour.

Release: ALIV