Altice Portugal will be able to support the victims of the Monchique fire “beyond technology”. The executive president of the telecommunications company was yesterday, Wednesday, in Caldas de Monchique, to make a post-fire balance and guarantee that, in addition to the quick replacement of the "very small fringe" of services still to be restored, there is willingness to help those affected by the fire.
«Altice Portugal has a fundamental axis in its strategy, which is social responsibility. For this reason, we are considering supporting populations beyond technology, that is, with concrete actions aimed at this population, in coordination with the municipalities and through our Foundation», Alexandre Fonseca told Sul Informação.
The executive president of Altice Portugal, which is carrying out a two-day visit to the Algarve accompanied by its executive committee and those responsible for Altice Labs, met with the mayor of Monchique Rui André, with those responsible for Civil Protection and with the president of the Termas de Monchique. The objective was to take stock of the response given to this fire, also, by the services of this company.
During the week in which the flames raged, «the damage caused to the infrastructure of Altice Portugal was significant, having burned more than 1500 poles and more than 100 kilometers of cable».
Like Sul Informação verified in the field, the company's technicians began to replace these infrastructures at a time when the fire was still active, taking into account the importance of telecommunications during a catastrophe of this nature.
«In the very first hours of the fire, the teams managed to restore 75% of fixed communications in Vila de Monchique and mobile services were mostly restored, around 80% of the territory of the municipality of Monchique. Altice Portugal moved to the site about a hundred specialized technicians, its Crisis Management team, including its director, allowing the authorities to unblock extreme situations, in which it was necessary to guarantee access to restore the most critical communications» , told Alexandre Fonseca.
The company went further and «did everything to provide the authorities involved in the firefighting operation with the necessary means to guarantee communications, namely by making satellite phones available to the authorities, such as the V-SAT equipment with a generator at the fire station in Monchique, it operated several generators and several radio transmission emergency kits were also delivered'.
Another concern of Altice Portugal, at a time when the fire was still raging, was the restoration of the mobile service and its reinforcement «through an Altice Portugal transportable unit». “Other satellite support equipment was also made available, to restore services considered critical for the population, and in coordination with the authorities on the ground”.
«Altice Portugal was always in permanent support and coordination with the authorities and populations affected by the fire, in permanent contact with all authorities in the field of operations, namely the National Civil Protection Authority, the Ministry of Internal Administration and the municipalities of Monchique , Silves and Portimão," he assured the Sul Informação the executive president of Altice Portugal.
Rui André confirmed and thanked «all the collaboration provided on site from the first moment». «The presence of Altice Portugal in our municipality was absolutely essential for the restoration of communications and reconnections for the inhabitants of Monchique. We are counting on Altice Portugal, as we had in August, to jointly develop new projects that allow us to further dynamize this territory», added the mayor of Monchiquense.
Currently, "the need to identify customers who have not yet been reconnected from location to location" remains. Taking this into account, the telecommunications company recently met with mayors of Monchique's Town Council and Parish Councils to sensitize them to «the importance of bringing each customer case forward for reconnecting to the company's Customer Ombudsman Office, to to be reset immediately'.
«Rebuilding and improving, looking to the future, are watchwords for Altice Portugal, and that is why Altice Portugal is committed to the region and to its mayors», assured Alexandre Fonseca.
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