He and other players in the local telecommunication industry conceded that the company is new to the market, but is hardly offering anything new.

Their competitor is, in fact, Merit Communications Ltd., a broadband provider in Jamaica operating under the brand name 'Flow'.

FIBRE OPTIC RING

Merit Communications has operated in Jamaica for about four years, Mr. Campbell said.

Merit had built a fibre-optic ring in Kingston, allowing it to provide data and voice services to corporate customers.

When it was acquired by Columbus Communications, many thought Merit would enter the wholesale side of the business.

This was because another Columbus subsidiary, FibraLink Jamaica Limited has just laid a fibre optic cable between Jamaica and the Dominican Republic, and ultimately the United States.

Phillip Paulwell, Minister of Commerce, Science and Techn-ology with Energy, said last year that the granting of two undersea fibre optic cable network licences to FibraLink and Trans-Caribbean Cable Company Ltd, would open up competition in the routing of data and voice traffic into Jamaica and reduce the cost of high speed broadband Internet and other data by at least 70 per cent.

When Flow started up there was considerable interest and the surprise when, instead of selling to existing service providers, it started to acquire them.

Mr. Campbell said Internet prices had already started to trend down before Flow's entrance.  He said Cable and Wireless Jamaica's offering of standard telephone dialup Internet (ADSL) services along with MiPhone's mobile Internet technology have increased competition in Internet service giving consumers more choices.

"ADSL prices trended down by about 60 per cent last year," explained Mr. Campbell.  This he believes was independent of Flow.  Additionally he said technological advance continues even as Digicel Jamaica Limited and Cable and Wireless roll out an emerging technology called Wimax.

Some of Flow's offerings include basic broad band Internet services, basic telephone services and cable service.  The company plans to charge a flat rate of J$650 for basic cable service.  Broadband rates are set a $650 and $495 for basic telephone respectively.

"Our vision is to enable Jamaican business and households to access the same quality services and prices as their counterparts in the first world," said Director of Marketing, Flow Jean McPherson.  "Our overall package will add more value to the market place," added Ms. McPherson.

But "Flow's technology is not new....The combined service is the only new thing and JACS (cable provider) is already offering this," Mr. Campbell told Wednesday Business.

"Flow is not coming with anything new," said marketing co-ordinator for Jamaica Amalgamated Cable System (JACS) Pamela Fishley.  "We've been offering Internet service since last year."

Ms. Fishley said, "We are not nervous about the competition.  We already offer over 80 channels for the price of $695."

And president and chief executive officer for Cable and Wireless Jamaica , Rodney Davis is convinced that Flow will not be able to offer telephone rates significantly below existing market prices.  As well, "Cable and Wireless has been discussing the possibility of offering combined services with the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) for years.  This is not a new question."

The OUR has rejected their requests to offer this service on the basis of its dominant position in the land line market.

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