Cable & Wireless and Digicel - Jamaica's two largest telephone companies - will now find it easier to block competitors from abusing their network, under new directives issued last week by the industry's regulator - the Office of Utilities Regulations (OUR).

Under guidelines issued last weekend, the OUR will speed up the time it takes to grant the telecoms the go-ahead to block those they suspect are using their system illegally.

The move by the OUR comes against the background of complaints by C&W and Digicel, that over the past year they have lost more than $2 billion combined from other local telecommunication services providers that are used by foreign carriers as conduits to illegally route their calls into their network.

"This is not just a C&W issue," notes Errol Miller head of corporate communications at C&W. "It is an industry issue."
With by-pass, the scores of minions that have entered the telecommunications industry since liberalisation last year, are signing agreements with overseas carriers that allow them to channel calls - mainly from the USA to Jamaicans that use Cable & Wireless and Digicel telephones.

But these small players operate without the corresponding requisite agreements with the two giants in the industry to terminate these calls on their telephones - agreements that would involve some form of revenue sharing.

"Digicel lost hundreds of millions over the past few years from the activity," says David Hall, the chief operating officer of the cellular services provider. "We are totally concerned about bypass, because it is basically allowing people to come in and rob the service."

Between them, Cable & Wireless and Digicel have close to two million cellular and land lines, thus dominating the telecoms industry.

For some time now, C&W in particular has been complaining that others in the industry were leveraging its infrastructure to make millions of dollars from this activity. But up until last week's intervention by the OUR, C&W had to endure a lengthy complaint and investigation process before it could secure permission from the regulator to bar these companies from terminating overseas calls into its network.

"So what [the OUR] wanted to do is to compress that time period," notes David Geddes, public relations manager at the OUR, in explaining the recent directive. "What we do not want is to have a case dragged out ad-infinitum so by the time they get around to cease and desist, they already profited from the activity."

Both C&W and Digicel have been pressing for tighter regulation to protect their revenues.

C&W has complained of losing US$800,000 in revenue between February and June last year from GoTel Communications, a new entrant in the market that has focused on land-line services. It also claimed in September last year to have lost revenue of US$40 million from Oceanic Ltd, a cellular service provider.

To effect a bypass, a call is made from overseas by a person using a pre-paid calling card that links him via the Internet to a local Internet service provider. That call is then transferred via a local phone line to the receiver - usually a C&W or Digicel customer.

This process can also occur in the reverse, that is, from Jamaica to overseas. Another method is through a VSAT satellite - a device that allows local institutions to receive and send data over the Internet, but which can be adopted for the transmission voice.

Bypass infringement is dealt with under section 51 of the telecommunications act.

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