Craig Wireless Wireless cable TV company Craig Wireless Honolulu Inc. is closing its Bishop Street office, but it will continue to serve its nearly 8,300 residential and commercial customers on Oahu.
to close office
Service inquiries will be routed
through its Canadian locationBy Lyn Danninger
ldanninger@starbulletin.comWhen Craig bought its local business from Verizon in 2001, the company kept about 44 employees of the 60 employed by Verizon Americast. Fewer than 10 of its 14 remaining employees will be left after this week.
The company was originally launched in 1995 as Oahu Wireless Cable. Craig provides 190 wireless cable channels on Oahu in areas where customers are within line of sight of its transmitter locations.
Chief Operations Officer Gordon Johannson, based in the Canadian company's Winnipeg office, said Craig has no plans to pull out of the Hawaii market even though it has laid off staff several times since purchasing the company from Verizon.
"We are planning to maintain ourselves as an entity. We've simply made some structural changes to reflect the needs of our business," he said.
While Craig will still have local service people to maintain its equipment, all customer service inquiries will be handled by the company's call center in Winnipeg, said Johannson.
"We expect to keep service as good as ever," he said. "We have future plans for continued development in Hawaii but no concrete plans yet."
Craig's competitors in Hawaii are the Dish Network satellite TV company, with about 8,500 customers, and Time Warner Oceanic Cable, which dominates the state with about 375,000 customers.
Craig Wireless Honolulu Inc.