Lawmakers converged on the scheduled Wednesday hearing of the 35th Legislature’s Committee on Housing, Transportation and Telecommunications. They came to hear what telecommunications service providers had to say after receiving a barrage of customer complaints to their offices.
Most of the ire was directed towards the team from Liberty Mobile USVI, but its competitor — Viya — caught a share of public discontent brought to senators’ attention.
The Jan. 24 calendar announcement for the committee hearing described the session as a “Telecommunications update in light of an upsurge in consumer complaints, unresolved issues between providers and regulatory agencies, and the ongoing crisis of affordability.”
Committee chairman Marvin Blyden led the five-hour session with Vice Chair Marise James and members Angel Bolques Jr., Dwayne DeGraff, Ray Fonseca, Samuel Carrion and Carla Joseph on hand to listen and question testifiers. But Senate President Novelle Francis and Sens. Franklin Johnson, Donna Frett-Gregory, Alma Francis-Heyliger, and other lawmakers came to listen and pose questions of their own.
“It is important to note that there are 14 senators here, so we have a serious challenge,” Blyden said.
In prepared remarks delivered in committee, Liberty VI Country Manager Ravindra Maywahlall said his company was “committed to providing great service and coverage to all Virgin Islanders.”
The words rang hollow in the ears of Johnson, who said he skipped a healthcare appointment to confront Liberty executives. “From the inception of cell phone service till today, this is the worst service experienced in this territory,” he said.
Several lawmakers said they sought answers to the numerous complaints from their constituents. Blyden shared his own story of service interruptions, dropped calls and long waits for customer service. The chairman said he went to the company’s business office on St. Thomas to find out about his own service interruptions, waited to see a representative, then left.
Frett-Gregory asked about the appearance of an “SOS” message on her personal cell phone screen. It was a message that appeared almost every morning for several months.
“What is creating this SOS issue?” Frett-Gregory said. Francis asked the executives if neighboring Puerto Rico was experiencing the same problem. One Liberty official said yes.
Blyden, Francis and committee member Carrion all called on Liberty to issue credits to customer accounts. “I believe credit is due to the customers who have been experiencing issues,” Carrion said. He asked company spokesperson Catherine Kling about customer service wait times.
About an hour, Kling said. She said the company had already paid out many refunds to customers who show up at the business office with complaints.
“I have heard from customers saying their wait times have been up to four hours,” Carrion said.
Liberty Mobile Construction Director Jose Arias said the company is in the midst of migrating customers from the AT&T provider platform onto their own.
“Forty-seven thousand is the number of customers we have migrated to date,” Maywahlall said.
Sen. DeGraff said that as frustrating as the situation is, he wanted to promote constructive conversations that lead to problem-solving on behalf of Liberty customers. He added he was not looking forward to another session lasting 10 hours, made up of complaints and criticism, producing nothing in the end.
“We have had a tremendous amount of complaints about Liberty … What is going to be solved?” DeGraff said.
Viya Chief Executive Officer Geraldine Pitt was pressed about reports of the company recently laying off top managers. Pitt said her company was facing harsh financial pressure and had to change its business model in order to survive.
Francis asked for the number of Viya employees recently removed. Eight took voluntary severance, the chief executive said. Eight more were removed because of redundancy.
“What is Viya doing with respect to funding and money leaving the territory?” Blyden asked.
“We will now have our call center operating in Guyana. We will do our best to employ as many people as we can in the territory,” Pitt said.
