Digicel goes 4G

Launches consumer WiMax wireless broadband Internet service in Jamaica

BY ROSS SHEIL Online co-ordinator rsheil@jamaicaobserver.com

Saturday, August 21, 2010

NINE years after it revolutionised the mobile phone market in Jamaica, Digicel yesterday entered the consumer Internet market with the launch of its WiMax portable broadband service boasting that with the power of 4G "the possibilities are endless".

While almost every Jamaican owns a cellphone, and a generation has grown up familiar with e-mail and websites such as Facebook and YouTube, household Internet access and usage remain much lower at just over a third of the population, estimates Hopeton Dunn, head of the Telecommunications Policy Management programme at the Mona School of Business, University of the West Indies.

Confident of its performance in mobile and more recently with the growth of its three-year-old WiMax services for businesses, the Jamaican-based Irish-owned telecommunications company hopes to have a similar impact with its newest service, which it spent $2 billion to roll-out.

"With Digicel 4G Broadband, we are making wireless broadband Internet an easy-to-access, affordable reality and empowering Jamaican people and businesses to get the best out of the Internet, whenever and however they want it," said Digicel Jamaica Chief Executive Officer Mark Linehan.

The modems and various packages go on sale islandwide tomorrow.

Linehan would not reveal sales projections but reminded journalists at a launch press conference at the Spanish Court Hotel in New Kingston that Digicel had projected 100,000 customers within one year when it launched its mobile service in 2003. Famously it achieved that target within 100 days and now claims more than two million mobile users among Jamaica's 2.8 million population.

But Linehan also cautioned against such a high rate of growth this time around.

The WiMax network, which consists of 170 base stations, will initially cover 60 per cent of the population in 200 largely urban communities, with further roll-out planned. Digicel said that customers can expect average speeds of five megabytes per second.

With many Jamaicans still unable to afford Internet services, or more crucially the laptops and computers on which to surf the web, the company is to partner with others like Courts, NCB and credit unions islandwide to offer financing packages for computers, laptops, netbooks and modems.

"This is the biggest thing we have done in Jamaica since we launched nearly 10 years ago," said Linehan. "Today is a hugely exciting day for Digicel and for Jamaica. Today, Digicel is delivering the fastest and best wireless broadband service to customers across Jamaica and bringing the Internet to people and places who have never had it before."

However, although a company synonymous with mobile phones, customers will have to wait at least a year for the first WiMax-enabled handsets to become available on the local market. While customers of competitor networks Claro and LIME remain able to access the benefits of 3G data speeds on their handsets, Digicel as a mobile network will remain 2G GSM for the time being.

The company is pinning its hopes on the portability and simplicity of accessing the Internet with its modem, which users can plug into a wall socket. A small non-mains-powered USB modem will go on sale within the next two months.

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