C&W stalling competition — Digicel CEO

Seamus Lynch, Group CEO, Digicel, is convinced that it is just a matter of  time before the Cable&Wireless monopoly comes tumbling down across the region. “We are looking for where the monopolies,” he said of Digicel’s slick strategies. “We live and die by the sword of competition.” He is also confident that the Irish-based company will have 50 percent of the cellular market in Grenada by Christmas. The company got the licence in May this year, and was ready to launch in five months. But   Cable&Wireless put a spoke in their wheels by stalling the interconnection. “C&W would like to stall competition despite the liberalisation regulations in place,” he told reporters at a press conference at Spice Island Resorts in Grenada last Friday. Digicel’s solution, he says, is to be aggressive in the market and give customers what they want : cheaper prices, better service and rolling out the red carpet.

The company will have 20 dealer outlets and 3 flagship businesses in Grenada. So far, Digicel  has employed about 700 people throughout the region and invested about US$450m in infrastructure alone. “Digicel is the clear choice choice for mobile connection in Grenada,” Lynch, 34, said. He allayed fears that Digicel was not going to be here for the long haul, saying that the com[pany had already invest US$100m in the OECS countries. Adding that  Digicel was getting ready to set up cellular operations in Barbados. The company is in talks with three Latin American countries to provide cellular service but   Lynch  would not who these were. Like his boss and Digicel majority shareholder, Dennis O’Brien, Lynch was disappointed when the licencing process fell through. He estimates that setting up operations in TT would cost about US$130m -US$150m. The company has had to deal with stalling tactics by C&W in Barbados. For instance, after Digicel put in switches, C&W would not allow calls to go through  and it charged exorbitant rates for using its network. In Lucia and St Vincent, the islands’ respective Prime Ministers, Kenny Anthony and Ralph Gonsalves had to intervene to get C&W to co-operate.

Asked how many licences can the TT market sustain, Lynch thinks that the market should be allowed to decide. In the initial days of setting up, the hard work was convincing regional governments that competition was good, Lynch said. In St Lucia, C&W turned up the heat, saying that if Digicel was allowed to operate, they would leave the island. They stayed. He thinks it is obscene when a global company like C&W makes 82 percent of its profit from 28 percent of its operations in the Caribbean. At a time when most Caribbean markets are liberalised, “why is it  that TT is still paying exorbitant rates?” Like his boss, he has strident views on C&W. He says they can’t survive with competition. He cites the closure of their operations in USA, the scaling down of their operations in USA. “The only places where they have been succesful is where the maket is protected,” he says. He notes that everywhere Digicel operates, C&W was forced to bring down prices. The company is looking at the feasbility of setting up a telecom hub in Miami. “We want to lower prices for international calls,” he said. Digicel would also like to take on the laying of a submarine cable from OECS down to TT. “We would like to open up the market as much as possible, noting though such a project is going to need the approval of regional governents.