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Jamaica's tele-density has soared from 30 per cent to over 80 per cent since liberalisation of the telecoms market five years ago, ranking the island among the countries in the upper access category of the International Telecommunication Union's Digital Access Index. At present there are 1.8 million cellular users and 500,000 landlines in Jamaica.
Technology minister Phillip Paulwell believes that with such communication facilities, Jamaica has the potential to become the investment centre of the Caribbean, as well as the centre for information and communication technology (ICT) activities. Paulwell told participants at Monday's opening ceremony of the 9th telecommunications policy seminar of the Caribbean Telecommunications Union, that Jamaica could dominate the region in services such as call centres, both inbound and outbound; software development; data conversion and imaging and interactive training, and distance education programmes. The conference, being held at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in Kingston, ends on Friday. Paulwell told participants that two more telecommunications licences were granted by his ministry on Monday, bringing to 396, the number of licences signed to date. Those licensed include 72 Internet service providers (ISPs) and seven ISPs for subscriber television operators (STVOs). In addition, licences have also been granted for: - 62 international voice service providers;
- 35 domestic carriers;
- 44 domestic voice service providers;
- 32 data service providers;
- 10 free trade zone carriers;
- Eight free trade zone service poviders; and
- 68 international (voice/data/transit) carriers.
The minister said that within the next 10 to 12 months, two additional underseas fibre-optic cable networks would be constructed and operated by Fibralink Jamaica Limited and Trans-Caribbean Cable Company Limited. "This decision by government to award these undersea fibre licences is a significant move that will effectively end the monopoly on fibre into Jamaica, taking us closer to our goal of having the infrastructure to suggest us being a fully knowledge-based society," he said. The undersea fibre capabilities should not only open up competition in the routing of data and voice traffic into Jamaica, through non-satellite infrastructures, but will result in at least a 70 per cent deduction in the cost of high-speed broadband Internet and other data services, said the minister. http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/magazines/Business/html/20050406T000000-0500_78203_OBS_PAULWELL_CITES_____TELE_DENSITY_.asp |
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