Jamaica welcomes as many telecommunications players in the market, and a Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) - led government will not impede companies looking to do business in the country declared Minister of Finance Audley Shaw.

Speaking at an America Movil presentation in Mandeville, Central Manchester last month, Shaw said competition was good for the country and that Jamaicans stand to be the beneficiaries as the players duke it out for market share.

"With America Movil now in Jamaica, we are poised for an exciting period of competition in telecommunications. I want to make the point that competition is good for us. I remember the time when we were in Opposition, the company that had a monopoly wanted to prevent new players from coming into Jamaica and so hold on to its monopoly. Both the government and the opposition agreed that the market should be liberalised and today we have seen the aggressive growth of the mobile telephone market. We are now seeing with America Movil the diversity of technological applications."

The Minister of Finance went on to say that there are evident synergies between education and telecommunications and that it is very important that the country makes the most of them. He pointed out that Mandeville and Central Manchester have the highest level of educational institutions outside the corporate area. The Northern Caribbean University has a base in Mandeville.

"I want to make it clear, right here, that the Government of the JLP will not be suppressing competition in the telecoms market. We will be doing everything to encourage and enhance competition because when you have competition in the marketplace, it is the people who benefit most," said Shaw.

Speaking at the function, the Member of Parliament for Central Manchester Peter Bunting said that Mandeville is the third biggest town in Jamaica and that while it did not have the more traditional investments such as hotels, it welcomed new information technology investments such as America Movil's new GSM network. He added that the area would be ideal for the Mexican company to establish a call centre.

America Movil's Chief Operating Officer Colin Webster said that MiPhone, which has been subsequently acquired by America Movil, faced its challenges in the past with its CDMA network but that the MiPhone that Jamaicans recognised now no longer exists. MiPhone, he said, has always enjoyed high primary usage in both Mandeville and Montego Bay.

"We had coverage challenges which have dogged us but we will not be repeating those. Our intention now with America Movil as our parent is to be the number one mobile telephone network provider in Jamaica," declared Webster.

America Movil presently enjoys a presence in 18 countries. It is the fourth largest provider of cell phones, coming in after Vodafone which is currently in third position with 260 million subscribers. America Movil, which is a Mexican company headed by Carlos Slim, has 170 million subscribers. Last year it acquired MiPhone for US$250 million. Jamaica represents its first foray into an English- speaking country.

America Movil's Jamaican operations are headed by Alejandro Guiterrez who gave some background on the company. He said that America Movil generates 6.7 million users every quarter and that it builds out by organic growth. It has invested US$19 billion into its worldwide operations and generates revenues of US$33 billion a year, reinvesting its margins back into the company.

"Most of our earnings back into the countries in which we do business. That gives us the ability to develop new engineers and new marketing initiatives. Our minutes per user has grown by 40 per cent while prices continue to trend downwards.

"Although Jamaica has a ninety per cent penetration rate, many people have two or three phones across two or three networks. What is important to note here is that no other country in the world has that penetration rate, yet prices have remained the same since 2001. We need to break that artificially high barrier because it does not make economic sense. Jamaicans should not be carrying three phones in order to be cost-effective across the different networks, it's just too costly. We have to make calls cheaper across the networks."

America Movil is close to completing the erection of 600 cell sites and will provide direct employment to 300 people and 8000 indirectly. It works with the largest the cell phone technology service provider in the world, a Chinese company called Huawei. Alejandro Guiterrez says that only three senior managers will be foreigners, namely the chief financial officer, the chief technical officer and the chief executive officer. The rest of the team will be mainly comprised of Jamaicans.

"We want to introduce new services like 3-D which can provide videoconferencing on your cell phone as well as data transmissions at 1.5 megabytes. We will enable Jamaicans to watch television on their cell phones.

"Despite the popularity of cell phones here, competitors have been unable to deploy their services on the network and that has to change. Jamaica needs to encourage companies that want to invest and compete on real costs. We need to bring down interconnection costs in this country. After four years in Jamaica, we will be retiring the MiPhone brand."

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