Bahrain: A communications blackout lasting almost a week has hit mobile phone customers in an upmarket seafront development in Muharraq.

Residents of Amwaj Islands who are signed up to one of the country’s biggest telecommunications networks told the GDN yesterday that they had been unable to make calls or access the Internet for the past six days.

Concerns have been raised that the outage makes it impossible to contact the emergency services if required, as many homes do not have landline
telephones.

One affected customer, a 59-year-old British national who asked not to be named, said the company’s customer service representatives were not ever aware of the problem.

“I have been without Internet in Amwaj for the past six days and there is no end in sight,” he said.

“Moreover, I can’t cancel my contract with the company and switch to another provider as I will be charged a penalty if I do that.

“The standard reply is ‘we are working on it’, but they are unable to say why the service is not working or when we can expect it to resume.”

Another resident who wished to remain anonymous said she had been forced to drive over the causeway that separates the islands from Muharraq just to make a phone call.

“It is not only me who is facing this problem – everyone I know in Amwaj on this network has complained that the service has been down for the past week or so,” said the 27-year-old British
national.

“I live near The Dragon Hotel and Resort and I once had to drive outside Amwaj just to make an urgent call for work.

“Even though it shows that there is a full signal on my phone, I can’t make any calls.

“Sometime I can get through but then it breaks up after 10 seconds.

“I have been a customer of this company for seven years and this has never happened before, but unfortunately if it continues I think I will switch providers once my contract ends.

“I’m stuck for now, because if I decided to change before then I would have to pay for the rest of my contract.”

A spokesman for the company involved refused to comment on the issue when contacted by the GDN.

His only advice was for customers to contact the company’s customer service hotline with their location and account details if they had a service problem.

shahlaa@gdn.com.bh