Communication Cellulaire d'Haïti, S.A. or (ComCEL), became known as the trademark Voilà, was a

telephone company A telephone company, also known as a telco, telephone service provider, or telecommunications operator, is a kind of communications service provider (CSP), more precisely a telecommunications service provider (TSP), that provides telecommunicat ...

Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...

which primarily dealt in

mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...

service. It was a subsidiary of US-based Trilogy International Partners.

History

Comcel was awarded a license to construct and operate a nationwide TDMA mobile communications network in September 1998. A year later, in September 1999, Comcel launched commercial service in

Port-au-Prince Port-au-Prince ( , ; ht, Pòtoprens ) is the capital and most populous city of Haiti. The city's population was estimated at 987,311 in 2015 with the metropolitan area estimated at a population of 2,618,894. The metropolitan area is define ...

, and had developed the largest mobile phone coverage area in Haiti. Comcel, at the same time, was also granted the right to build and operate

payphone A payphone (alternative spelling: pay phone) is typically a coin-operated public telephone, often located in a telephone booth or in high-traffic outdoor areas, with prepayment by inserting money (usually coins) or by billing a credit or debit ...

services and planned to have over 500 phones in Port-au-Prince and

Jacmel Jacmel (; ht, Jakmèl) is a commune in southern Haiti founded by the Spanish in 1504 and repopulated by the French in 1698. It is the capital of the department of Sud-Est, 24 miles (39 km) southwest of Port-au-Prince across the Tiburon Peninsula ...

by year-end, with expansion to other provinces in 2006. In 2002, Comcel was granted the right to operate an international gateway and began carrying international calls in August of that year. In August 2005, Comcel received a license to operate a nationwide

GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a standard developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to describe the protocols for second-generation ( 2G) digital cellular networks used by mobile devices such ...

network that launched on October 21 with nationwide coverage under the Voilà GSM brand, which has become its trade name since. In 2009, Comcel received the

U.S. Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...

Award for Corporate Excellence (Multinational). The company's services temporarily came to halt following the 12 January

2010 Haiti earthquake A disaster, catastrophic Moment magnitude scale, magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake struck Haiti at 16:53 local time (21:53 UTC) on Tuesday, 12 January 2010. The epicenter was near the town of Léogâne, Ouest (department), Ouest department, a ...

. While the company's facilities were not seriously affected by the earthquake, 5 of its 575 employees had died and 35 remained missing The company was sold to

Digicel Digicel is a Jamaican and Caribbean mobile phone network and home entertainment provider operating in 33 markets worldwide. Digicel has operated in several countries, including Guyana, Fiji, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, St. Lucia, Suriname, and Ja ...

group on March 30, 2012 and ceased to operate independently on October 12, 2012.

References

External links

Article de bonzouti.com sur Comcel Haiti
{{Caribbean mobile phone companies 1998 establishments in Haiti 2012 disestablishments in Haiti Telecommunications companies established in 1998 Mobile phone companies of Haiti