Financial Gleaner understands that two of the 11 active ISPs have partnered with MiPhone earlier this month to use its cell phone network to offer wireless Internet service to their customers and that other ISPs are currently in dialogue with MiPhone to explore similar arrangements.

"We are using the MiPhone cell network to get to you," said chief executive officer of Emoquad, Mr. Hugh Campbell.  "MiPhone runs on the CDMA and this runs much faster than the GPRS system used by other mobile providers," he explained.

Mr. Campbell believes the Internet penetration is not moving as fast as the government or business sector would like and hopes that the wireless initiative will improve this.

"People still have problems with connection methods, the lack of land lines and all types of issues.  We are hoping that we can break the back of this," he said.

Marketing manager of Cybervale, Tracy Walker-Lindner, said her company will use the new package to offer an alternative for customers.  "There is a demand for it," she said.

"We are taking the approach to partner with ISP's and present an alternate way of accessing the Internet," stated vice-president for sales and marketing for MiPhone, Alex Hill, who sees the interest in MiPhone's CDMA technology as a natural development.

He said, the CDMA system outperforms the GPRS service by producing speeds between 82-100 kilo bytes per sec.  He said his competitors can only produce speed somewhere between 8 to 35 kilobytes per second.

OPERATION

The wireless Internet service offers Internet users a monthly rate in exchange for unlimited access.  Users may connect with a MiPhone handset or cell phone using a data cable to the Internet or they may connect using a PC card purchased from MiPhone which goes into a laptop.

"You don't dial up," explained Mr. Campbell.  "It doesn't cost you any phone call charge."

Both Emoquad and Cybervale charge a monthly rate of US$35 for this service.  The cost of the cable ranges from $2,400 to $3,400 while PC cards will be available at US$200 in the United States.

"It is very competitive.  ADSL is the competing product but this is tied to the phone line.  This product gives you portability," emphasised Mr. Campbell.  Customers are guaranteed, portability, faster transfer rate and elimination of telephone charge rate.

AUGURS WELL FOR BUSINESS

"It's a win-win situation for us," said Mr. Hill.

Mr. Campbell hopes that the new product will increase his customer base.  "Between now and the end of the year we are trying for about 3,000-6,000 customers," he said.  "We are gauging it based on what is happening."

He said the company has invested about J$1million in the new product which includes a lot of hidden costs.

Mrs. Walker-Lindner said since not all her customers use MiPhone, the product will convert the work based on the wireless route.  She noted, however, that with the cards for the laptop being a bit more expensive, customers will likely opt for the MiPhone option.

STRATEGY

Although MiPhone is poised to benefit greatly from the partnership, Mr. Hill said the company is not trying to market its mobile service through it.

"We are using the opportunity to load the system and see how it performs," he said.  "It's something that we have planned and we'll make consumer demand drive the business."

For now, it is operational in Kingston and Portmore with plans to expand further to Montego Bay.

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