More to telecom than cell phones

Chairman and CEO of Oceanic Digital Communications, Robert Segal said a cellular phone in every pocket has done nothing to enhance the telecommunications capacity of the Caribbean. He was of the view that parts of the Caribbean were 20 years behind the rest of the world in terms of the development of the telecommunications sector and blames the absence of fresh ideas and investment for this. This, he said, presented his company with the ideal opportunity to move into a region which was so desperately in need of direction. Until now, he said, large telecommunications companies, apart from Cable and Wireless which holds a monopoly in the region’s telecommunications market, have overlooked the opportunities for expansion in the Caribbean, much to their own disadvantage.

Segal was one of a group of panelists who held discussions on the liberalisation of the telecommunications market in the Caribbean at the recently concluded Euromoney/Latin Finance Caribbean Investment Form, which was held at the Hilton Hotel from May 12 to 13. He explained that Oceanic Digital entered the Caribbean market solely on the premise that the region had been previously ignored by its competitors. Segal said, “We started out simply looking at a region that was 20 years behind in terms of telecommunications development, a region which had been overlooked by the large companies other than Cable and Wireless. “We saw this as an opportunity to step in and bring modern telecommunications.” The panel’s focus was on determining whether or not liberalised markets were the only way to achieve a high-tech Caribbean economy.

According to Segal, communication and economic endeavour go hand in hand. However, the region’s present situation did not hold much hope for further economic development, he said, hinting that his company could very well hold the key for survival. “We think that at the end of the day, by the time we finish building our networks, we are going to be leaving some really serious footprints in the sand in terms of contributing to the economic development of the region, by providing reliable, universal and affordable service,” he maintained. “We have chosen to provide those three things primarily because we don’t see them being readily available throughout the Caribbean or in any specific market.” Sinead O’Marcaigh of Digicel Caribbean, cited the example of her company’s movement into the Jamaican market to highlight her belief that liberalisation does indeed contribute to economic development.

In 2003, she revealed, the Jamaican Finance Minister attributed a large proportion of the country’s GDP growth to investment from Digicel into the sector. She said, “We saw a revolution to a certain extent where communities which had no communication, not even fixed line communication, immediately went to cellular mobile communication because of investment in these areas. “If Jamaica is used as a study, it shows that communication can have an effect on an economy.” Leonard DeBarros, Deputy Chief Operating Officer and Chairman of the Board, Jamaica and Panama, Cable and Wireless PLC, took the view that while liberalisation would take the region’s telecommunications part of the way, the journey could not be completed without full  regional integration.