'That's not LIME' - Dehring distances firm from old monopoly

It’s time for a level playing field — Dehring

BY JULIAN RICHARDSON Assistant business co-ordinator richardsonj@jamaicaobserver.com

Friday, January 20, 2012

LIME Jamaica yesterday sought to distance itself from the old Cable & Wireless (C&W) Jamaica monopoly. At the same time, company chairman Chris Dehring labelled bitter rival Digicel as the biggest threat to liberalisation in the telecommunications market.

"I remember Jamaica Telephone Company, TOJ (Telecommunications of Jamaica), I remember the old Cable & Wireless... Those companies are extinct, they don't exist anymore," Dehring told a Rotary Club of Kingston weekly luncheon at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in New Kingston.

"In fact, you are hard pressed, and I haven't found one yet, to find a single senior executive in C&W in London who was a part of those companies," Dehring added.

"The people that are involved in this company are young, energetic and bright, and Jamaicans run this company from top to bottom... That's the company we are talking about, not the historical one which people like to bring up," he said.

Jamaica opened its telecommunications sector in 2001 after more than 40 years of monopoly by C&W. The telecom — which rebranded its Caribbean operations to LIME in 2008 — has since experienced a reversal of fortunes in the market, with Digicel emerging as the leading mobile phone provider and the likes of Flow continuing to gnaw market share away in areas such as Internet and commercial telecom services.

LIME has, over those years, complained about what it views as an unfriendly regulatory framework coupled with anti-competitive pricing policies by dominant player Digicel in the lucrative mobile phone market.

Digicel last year completed a deal to acquire Claro's Jamaican operations, solidifying its place as the top mobile phone provider in Jamaica where it claims over two million subscribers. But LIME became incensed after news broke last week that Digicel was granted permission to shut down the Claro network less than four months after agreeing to keep it going under the terms of their merger.

"Our issue with the Digicel/Claro merger is that it is being done in the context of an outdated and irrelevant telecoms legislation and regulatory environment — a fact that successive Governments and regulators acknowledge time and time again, but somehow, this is allowed to remain," argued Dehring.

According to the LIME chairman, the existing telecoms regulatory framework was originally meant to facilitate competition when the market was liberalised, and as a result is biased against LIME, which was the dominant player back in 2001.

"These regulations place a lot of emphasis on regulating our company, so our position as the incumbent would not give us an unfair advantage over new entrants. Well, it's been 11 years and they haven't changed one single letter of the law," Dehring declared.

Dehring accused Digicel of now "exploiting their dominance to the detriment of consumers and competition". He specifically argued that Digicel charges exorbitant rates for its customers to call LIME numbers and said the time has come for every Jamaican to pay the same rate to call any network.

"It's time for Digicel to stop punishing their customers for calling LIME... It's time for a level playing field so telecom companies can compete on factors like price, service, innovation and let the consumer decide," said Dehring. "We strongly believe that the granting of this merger, without the necessary regulatory changes, will stifle competition and prevent consumers from reaping the true benefits of liberalisation... 11 years later, that liberalisation is under serious threat and it is us, as consumers, who will be worse off."

The LIME chairman reiterated that despite the company's dissatisfaction with the regulatory framework, it has no intention of exiting Jamaica, as was reported Wednesday.

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'That's not LIME' - Dehring distances firm from old monopoly