The fourth-quarter numbers from Jamaica’s Office of Utilities Regulation show a telecoms sector reshaped in three months by Hurricane Melissa.

 Whether that reshaping holds is now the open question facing operators and regulators alike.

Mobile broadband subscriptions rose 30.15% quarter over quarter to 2.38 million, adding more than 552,000 subscribers, largely people whose fixed lines went down during the storm and who moved to wireless data as a substitute. Fixed voice subscriptions fell 14.15% to 400,290 over the same period, with residential lines down 18%. Domestic fixed voice revenue dropped 36.2% to $616 million, the steepest single-quarter decline in the OUR’s data series.

The scale of the shift sets this event apart from ordinary market churn. A move of more than half a million subscribers in one quarter is not incremental substitution. It is a mass migration triggered by physical damage to cable and copper infrastructure, not by a change in consumer preference on its own.

That distinction matters for how the numbers should be read going forward. Flow, Jamaica’s largest fixed-line provider, told parent company Liberty Latin America that Melissa cost the group at least US$20 million in lost revenue and destroyed 136,000 revenue-generating units at the storm’s peak. Much of that damage is repairable. Fibre and copper lines can be restrung, and Flow has said it expects to return to pre-hurricane profitability by the end of 2026, implying management still views the fixed business as recoverable rather than permanently diminished.

But repair is not the same as reversal of consumer behaviour. Global telecoms data has shown for close to two decades that once a household drops a landline for a mobile substitute, it rarely reconnects. A widely cited Forrester analysis from 2008 found telecom product managers had little hope of winning cord-cutters back to fixed lines, and the pattern has held broadly across markets since. Jamaica’s own fixed broadband pricing adds pressure in the same direction. Industry estimates put a typical fixed broadband subscription at roughly 7 to 8% of per capita income, well above international affordability benchmarks, giving storm-displaced customers a financial incentive to stay on mobile plans even after repairs are complete.

There is also a precedent specific to Jamaica. Hurricane Beryl disrupted both mobile and fixed broadband service in several parishes in 2024, months before Melissa struck. Two major storm events in consecutive years, each pushing customers toward mobile and satellite alternatives, could compound rather than reset the underlying trend.

Flow’s response points toward a bet on hybrid rather than pure fixed-line recovery. The company has partnered with Starlink to deploy satellite connectivity in hard-to-restore areas, and has been burying fiber routes underground in prior hardening efforts. Both moves suggest an operator planning for a network less dependent on above-ground fixed infrastructure, regardless of how much of the lost customer base eventually returns to wired service.

The OUR’s next quarterly reports, covering the first half of 2026, will show whether the current subscriber base holds, drifts further toward mobile, or partially reverts as repairs finish. Until then, the fourth-quarter figures represent a data point on a shift whose durability remains unproven.