Telecommunication provider Flow is foreseeing solid ICT growth in Jamaica in the near future.

The firm made the prediction against the background of its commitment to the local ICT sector after five years in the country.

With US$250 million dollars in total investment to date, Flow continues to post positive growth since its entry into the island, despite a very challenging business climate. The company has been aggressive building out its network since its arrival in Jamaica and is now in front of approximately 50 per cent of residential households covering the major metropolitan areas and available to almost 100 per cent of businesses via its Direct Fibre connection.

“Our broadband technology is viewed as the modern day enabler of business, social activities and rural development,” Flow president Michele English said on Thursday, at the company’s fifth anniversary celebrations.

“Governments worldwide are investing millions to bring this kind of technology to their respective countries. We are happy to bring this kind of infrastructure to the island,” she continued. “Our infrastructure, has almost unlimited capacity to keep pace with future developments and applications without the need for major re-investment and new deployment. This simply means that our technology allows Jamaica to keep pace with global advances in an affordable, competitive manner.”

As an enabler of economic growth, Flow said broadband must be accessible to businesses at affordable rates. It is against this background that English said that since Flow’s entry in the marketplace, the price of commercial internet has gone down by more than 90 per cent. What’s more, Wnglish said Flow has transformed the home Internet experience by driving prices down by as much as 78 per cent and offering speeds of up to 100 Mbps to homes, the fastest in the country.

English also revealed that Flow is currently connecting 108 High Schools, Libraries & Post Offices covering the Ministry of Education zones from Westmoreland across the North Coast around to St Thomas via a contract with the Government of Jamaica for its Universal Access Initiative.

English said this Network will see each Flow site with a dedicated 100Mbps connection with service levels exceeding 99.9 per cent availability. For schools, she said the service will transform students and faculty access to online learning and development. For Libraries and Post Offices this means the delivery of new community access points from which residents in more rural locations will be able to access the internet, she added.

In addition to this project, Flow is also fully engaged in new areas of economic growth such as Falmouth and is delivering a full range of business services to the businesses within the Port of Falmouth, English said.

“Together with our partners we have provided fiber infrastructure throughout the town to support IP Surveillance. Within the port itself all of the passengers as they disembark will have access to a WiFi network capable of providing every one of them with broadband speeds. As a full service ICT provider we are working with PAJ Pihl and Royal Caribbean to deliver an ICT Platform capable of supporting the long terms needs of the town of Falmouth”, English revealed.

The Flow boss added that the company is also working closely with local and international development agencies to promote economic activity, noting that it has made commitments to JAMPRO and the Urban Development Corporation that no inward investment opportunity to Jamaica will be lost through Telecommunicaitons cost or unavailability of ICT services.

“Our first Five years in Jamaica has been nothing short of incredible, we look forward to continue to working with the Governement and Corporate Jamaica to continue to build, facilitate innovation and enable growth”, said English.