The president made it clear that the situation was not the same as that with Digicel, when that mobile service provider entered the newly deregulated market and seized a predominant market share from the former monopoly provider.

"We have learned from the Digicel experience.  C&WJ isn't the company it was five years ago.  We do not behave like a monopoly anymore.  The new player has been coming for some time.  They have been laying pipes for over a year so we would be blind not to see them coming."

And Mr. Davis doesn't see the impact of Flow as detrimental to C&WJ.  At a media luncheon at the company's headquarters yesterday, he said "Flow has made a (newspaper) headline about saving a company 70 per cent on their communications bill.  That is just one company and I can find examples of the same thing that C&WJ has done.  In fact, the competitor has been going after our corporate customers since November.  And I can tell you that I have won more customers than I have lost."

NEW LANDLINE PACKAGE

In terms of the residential side of the business, he challenged consumers to see in a few months whether their fixed line bill had been reduced significantly with Flow.  He added that C&WJ was about to launch, "a new landline package that will give consumers even greater choice on how to structure their monthly phone expenses."

Additionally, Mr. Davis wondered how Flow planned to cope with the regulatory framework in Jamaica.  "I am not certain that Flow can really deliver on the prices that they have announced.  I say that because there are regulatory hurdles that they have yet to clear and I have not seen evidence that they have approval for all they want to do."

In less than one year, C&WJ has built up their Internet customer base from 10,000 to 40,000.  This fell short of the objective of 50,000 customers but was still a major achievement, he said.

BROADBAND MARKET

"For the broadband market, Flow is only going into three parishes where they see that there is money to be made.  The rest of the parishes will not be profitable.  We, on the other hand have islandwide Internet coverage.  What Flow is doing is not expanding coverage but going into places where we have already built up the market."

Overall, Mr. Davis reminded the audience that C&WJ has invested heavily in improving their network and infrastructure.  For the 2006/2007 year the company planned to invest $3.5 billion and increase its focus on business customers.

It expects to provide even better coverage and capacity for its mobile service customers and to Revitalise the fixed line business.

"We can exist in a competitive environment," Mr. Davis said.  "I love a good fight."

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