Espinal: Three years needed for telecom industry to best serve TT

Espinal delivered his presentation at Amcham’s meeting at the Marriott yesterday.

Using World Bank data mainly from 2003, as well as taking into consideration the society’s development in terms of financial, commercial, people knowledge base, brain drain in the telecommunications and judicial systems, TT is ranked 52 from the 102 countries where data came from.

Topping the list was the United States that was ranked one, Singapore two, Australia nine, UK 16, New Zealand 23, Portugal 31, Brazil 39, Costa Rica 49, Argentina 50 then TT with Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Panama, El Salvador and Venezuela all below the middle level of the pack where TT is ranked.

Espinal said that in the Caribbean, there is still a need to do a lot more development and the region ought to be using information and communications technology (ICT) as a competitive weapon where business is concerned.

Focussing on the Net-work Readiness Index (NRI) to find out the degree of perforation of a nation or a community to participate in and benefit from ICT development, he said three major components of NRI were studied. The environment including infrastructure, the readiness of the society and the usage.

In 2004, mobile services were 60 percent, wireline 96 percent, internet 18 percent and broadband five percent.

Espinal said by the end of the year his company is looking to increase internet servicing to 75 percent. And in terms of price cost, though very competitive in the region, he expects it to be the benchmark of the Caribbean by next year.

Asked if TSTT is prepared for a disaster such as Hurricane Katrina, Espinal said the company could withstand a category four but might have some problems with a category five hurricane. He reasoned that TSTT has a very resilient network and has recently purchased a lot of fibre optic material to beef up its operations. However, he admitted that one can never be fully prepared for natural disasters.

Concerning the GSM service, Espinal said TSTT is about to build a robust GSM network but, in terms of cloning, the society will have to play its part in helping TSTT get rid of the problem.

Espinal became TSTT’s CEO in mid-October of 2004. Prior to taking up that position, he had been president and CEO of several Verizons communications subsidiaries and joint ventures in Latin America since 1996.