Cable & Wireless (C&W) has begun negotiations to be part of the consortium that last week secured the rights to build a fibre-optic line from Jamaica - C&W's interest coinciding with a decision by its main rival, Digicel, to pull out of the group.

If successful, C&W would not only control the only existing telecommunications cable that connects Jamaica to the rest of the world, but would also be placed in a position to influence the decisions of a rival system.

Yesterday, Brian Crawford, the president of Trans Caribbean Cable Company (TCCC) confirmed in an interview with the Business Observer that C&W had been in talks since December to join the TCCC team.

TCCC is comprised of some 32 telecoms that came together to vie for one of two fibre-optic cable rights that the government was auctioning.

Digicel, which was one of the 32 companies in the TCCC group, lost a separate bid it had made on its own, but the loss was ameliorated by the fact that it was part of the TCCC winning team.

However on Monday, Digicel's chairman and principal shareholder, Denis O'Brien took the business world by surprise by announcing that his firm was pulling out of the grouping.

The equally-surprising development was yesterday's revelation that C&W had been in talks to join the group.
"The negotiations went well," said Crawford.

Yesterday C&W confirmed the negotiations, but would not elaborate.

However, Crawford suggested that C&W may have been motivated to secure another route out of Jamaica by Hurricane Ivan, and the potential the firm saw for major disruption to its service.

"Remember what happened after the hurricane," Crawford said alluding to the storm which disrupted C&W's fibre-optic network for over two days in September last year, leaving much of the island without Internet service.

Crawford himself could provide little information on Digicel's decision to break from the consortium, telling the Business Observer that he had "no information that Digicel is out".

But he acknowledged that Digicel's notable absent from last week's TCCC general meeting in Montego Bay, had raised some questions.

"Digicel was not represented at the meeting," he said. "They said that they had another meeting which conflicted."

Crawford added that Digicel's apparent "departure would have very little impact on the deployment of the cable", since other investors - among them some of the US largest telecoms, were still a part of the group.

"MCI, Verizon, Cingular/AT&T each have three times more capacity than Digicel ever had, and so if Digicel were to leave it would only be unfortunate for Digicel," said Crawford.

Digicel's first option was to secure its own licence to build a cable out of Jamaica, but as a safety had joined the TCCC group.

However, another group called FibraLink, along with TCCC, were offered the two licences.

"Digicel seems to be unhappy because they did not get the ability to control access of offering capacity for sale," Crawford reasoned.

Even so, C&W's involvement in the group is the more surprising development, given that the government had placed the tender to eliminate C&W's monopoly control of the fibre-optic line - a factor the government has repeatedly blamed for the high cost of Internet connection in Jamaica.

The government has maintained that competition is the best way to ensure low prices.

The TCCC plan involves building a single cable line running along the ocean's floor from Jamaica into Dominica Republic and ultimately into the United States.

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