MINISTER of Commerce, Science and Technology, Phillip Paulwell, promised the House of Representatives on Tuesday that, "very soon, when this Parliament is enabled to use computer laptops inside here, we are going to create a veritable hot spot right here in this parliament, in a positive way."

PAULWELL... amazed by cellphone growth

He was speaking during debate on a motion from Opposition MP, Andrew Holness, that Parliament enact laws to protect cellular phone owners from theft of the equipment.
This must have been good news for the ears of government backbencher Dr Morais Guy, who has consistently insisted that members be allowed to use laptops inside the chamber.

But, even more interesting were Paulwell's revelations about the growth of the cellular industry in Jamaica, which he said amazed even him.
"Never in our wildest dreams could we have anticipated that the market would have grown the way it has over the last number of years," Paulwell said.

"When we opened the market for competition, we envisaged that, based on the best advice, both local and international, that the most phones that we would have as part of the cell network would be 500,000. The experts were saying there was no way this economy could sustain more than 500,000 cell phones."

But, currently there are 2.2 million, Paulwell disclosed, "a higher penetration level than in the United States," he added.

"I think it would be instructive for us, as a society, to examine that phenomena because, apart from the fact that it demonstrates that we love to communicate, the International Telecommunications Union (ICU), based on their own assessment, is convinced that just this ability to communicate by voice telephony has had a dramatic impact, positively, on our GDP and that Jamaica has really taken the phenomenal improvements in wireless telecommunications to a new level," said the technology minister.

"This is not where we intend to stop. We have achieved this remarkable success based on competition. We have seen over US$700 million come into the economy through technology and we have seen better service and lower prices. But where we are headed, is to provide the infrastructure for us to have a managed basis society... to allow every single Jamaican to have access."

But, Paulwell says that he has some concerns about the spread of the use of cell phones among students.

"I am very concerned. I have seen students parading with what they call the bling-bling phones, but I really want to caution some of the parents, because I think that it is useful for the students to have phones to have access, but I think they really have to be responsible. I am seeing some of our youngsters flipping open the phones, using them on the public transportation and many of these phones are very expensive equipment.

"I really want to say to parents, many of whom don't have computers at home, buy a cheaper phone and use some of that money to buy a computer for the child so that he goes home and does some proper work on a computer. I think that we have to be a lot more responsible in how we use the technology," he said.

balfordh@jamaicaobserver.com

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