Saith: End in sight for telecom war

Speaking afterwards with Newsday, Saith said Government is "bringing the parties together and trying to get a solution." Saith stuck to the position he articulated at a November 3 post-Cabinet news conference at Whitehall — that Government will not get involved in the interconnection feud between TSTT and Digicel.

Digicel (TT) CEO Stephen Brewer urged Government to use its 51 percent shareholding in TSTT to help resolve the situation. Saith reiterated yesterday that Government is not going to issue a directive on how that matter should be resolved. "What the Government is trying to do is to bring the parties together and work out the arrangements," he explained.

Asked whether he believed interconnection problems between TSTT and Digicel would soon be resolved, Saith replied, "Things are coming along."

On Brewer’s announcement that Digicel’s network is "ready to go," Saith said this was long overdue, and he was pleased to see local telecom liberalisation in action. He was optimistic that mobile phone calls would soon be made between networks operated by TSTT, Digicel and local telecom outfit LaqTel.

Revealing a copy of a November 16 US$1.5 million cheque made out to TSTT to purchase interconnection equipment, Brewer declared that the cheque "is being delivered today (yesterday)" and Digicel could not believe that TSTT "could be so obstructive of not to have already ordered this equipment." He said the equipment was available online, standard worldwide, and Digicel believed it was paying six times the price it should be paying for the equipment. He said the Telecommunications Authority (TATT) would have to act as ombudsman in the future in such matters.

Noting that Digicel had invested US$200 million to establish its GSM network in TT, Brewer said the number of mobile phone users increased in all nations where Digicel operates because, "we bring the prices down." "We make mobile telephony that much more affordable so everybody could have mobile phones," he declared. Brewer said Digicel will soon be serving people in 15 Caribbean countries and could take away at least 500,000 of TSTT’s current mobile phone customers over the next two to three years.

TSTT has repeatedly claimed that the November 30 deadline for interconnection with Digicel was unrealistic and unlawful, and interconnection would not be possible before April 2006.