The company that owns the fishing boat that damaged the fiber optics cable connecting Cape Verde to the rest of the world last month has not offered to pay the costs resulting from its repair and prefers to discuss the issue in court. A provisional deposit of 600,000 escudos has been placed in the bank BCA to guarantee payment in the event that courts rule in favor of Cabo Verde Telecom, in which case the Cape Verdean telecommunications company will demand not only reimbursement for the repair of the cable and the losses experienced over the 15 days during which services were interrupted, but also payment for the harm done to the companys image. CV Telecoms losses include the rental of space on the INTELSAT II satellite and the payment of repair services on the fiber optics cable.
A source at Cabo Verde Telecom told , that, immediately after the cable was damaged in an incident prior to last months, the company spent some 15,000,000 escudos on lit buoys to mark the path of the fiber optics cable in Cape Verdes ports. And as these buoys are already included on international sea charts, Telecom officials say that no merchant marine captain can claim not to be aware of the existence of the cable linking Cape Verde to the rest of the world.
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The rupture of the fiber optics cable mainly affected Internet connections in the country, which yesterday returned to normal. Telephone connections were only affected in the first hours following the accident and were normalized soon thereafter, as Cabo Verde Telecom has space reserved on the INTELSAT II satellite for this type of operation. Only in exceptional cases, according to our source, is it possible to obtain space on the satellite for Internet connections. |
