Above: Trilogy Chairman John Stanton (centre) and President Brad Horwitz receive the ACE award from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during December. The award was for the telco investment company's work in Haiti.Trilogy International Partners has pa
Above: Trilogy Chairman John Stanton (centre) and President Brad Horwitz receive the ACE award from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during December. The award was for the telco investment company's work in Haiti.
Trilogy International Partners has partially restored services in earthquake-devastated Haiti.
The Seattle-based Trilogy owns Haitian mobile phone company Voila, and numbers a majority stake in New Zealand’s 2degrees among its other international holdings.
According to an update posted to Trilogy's website at 8.30am this morning NZ time, Voila’s “core switching elements were restored to a level capable of supporting reliable commercial traffic” at midnight local time.
Around 70% of Voila’s sites are now fully operational, with maintenance teams on the ground in Haiti still working on the remainder.
"Voilà’s network continued to operate for several hours through the aftershocks before we were forced to shut down the switch to maintain its integrity until our generators and cooling systems were back online," said the company in a statement.
The telco's international gateway has also been reconnected, allowing customers to make and receive overseas calls.
Voila has around 1 million customers in Haiti.
Trilogy has set up a “crisis command centre” in Florida to coordinate the network restoration.
Spokeswoman Bryony Hilless told NBR that 2degrees incoming chairman, Stewart Sheriff (an Arizona resident), was part of Trilogy’s Florida team.
NZ visit still on
On Wednesday it was announced that Trilogy CTO Mr Sheriff - currently vice-chairman of 2degrees - would become chairman of 2degrees, replacing Bill Osborne.
Mr Osborne’s departure coincides with the Hautaki Trust’s failure to raise $20 million to the dilution of its 20% stake in 2degrees. The trust’s stake is now expected to fall to 13%, with Trilogy (which already owns 52% of 2degrees) or UK-based CVP (26%) expected to increase their holding.
Ms Hilless said Trilogy chairman - multi-billionaire John Stanton - will still visit New Zealand next week as scheduled.
Mr Stanton will speak at a January 21 breakfast event in Auckland, sponsored by The American Chamber of Commerce.
The Trilogy chairman recently received a State Department award from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for his company’s work in Haiti, which includes supporting an educational trust founded by musician Wyclef Jean.
