In 2001, when Digicel arrived in Jamaica it had the body of a skinny little kid who had an eagerness to prove that it could discover the lay of the land and make its name felt throughout the tropical paradise.

At that time, Cable and Wireless was just this overweight, lumbering kid who never quite seemed as if it wanted to break out into fully blown adolescence. It just wanted another fat burger.

At that time, I had a Cable &Wireless (C&W) mobile phone, plus its landline and, having no competition, both were expensive for Jamaican consumers to maintain. So, smug in the satisfaction that competitors were absent, C&W made it a near impossibility to secure a landline in the years prior to 2001 to the extent that it became a sort of status symbol to have a landline in one’s home.

At that time the worst words that could ever be uttered by a visitor to one’s home or a relative who found it hard to return to their own space was, ‘May I use your phone?’ Once they began, and then they actually sat down in a relaxed pose, one could see the dollars just mounting up and floating away.

Few could afford the C&W mobile rates, so relatively few Jamaican consumers were walking around with mobile phones. As the telecoms market opened up, the fat kid seemingly fell asleep, as Digicel began to sprint like a spindly Warren Weir who desperately wanted to be on the winners’ podium. By the time the overweight boy recovered from his slumber, Digicel had long sprinted away and did it with panache and business aggressiveness to the point that it eventually became the darling of the mobile phone market in a very hospitable Jamaican market.

C&W just did not know what had steamrolled over it.

It is 13 years later and C&W, branded as LIME a few years ago, has become much leaner and more aggressive than it was when it could not get off the stool at the fat burger joint. It has begun to sprint, and the very thing Digicel did to it in 2001 is being returned, but Digicel can’t quite figure out how to return the compliment.

Digicel still has its number one ranking in terms of mobile customers, but it has become visibly rankled by the C&W (LIME) buyout of Columbus Communications (Flow). To Digicel, it is unfair competition. But how can this be so when Digicel has never once ceased being a company that could refuse a good synergistic buyout in the years that LIME remained silent as Digicel snapped up companies left, right and centre?

Right after Digicel began its 2001 operation in Jamaica I gave away my C&W mobile phone. Soon after, I ditched my C&W landline and, as a part of Flow’s triple play, I have a Flow landline. Now I am back with a LIME mobile. With all of my personal changes, a Digicel mobile still occupies the hands and pockets to a greater extent than those owning LIME mobiles. So, what is the complaint really about?

In the past three years Digicel has acquired over 20 telecoms firms in the region.

Can Digicel be reminded that because C&W was that fat kid eating up all the burgers in the years prior to 2001, it is not OK to complain in 2014, just because the fat has been shed and the kid is growing up to be that top sprinter.

It is quite plausible that, behind closed doors, the thoughts of the new merger does not fit in with Digicel’s business plans. After all, with the plans for the LIME/Flow merger being the full rollout of quad play — that is mobile, Internet, TV and fixed voice — I can quite understand that Digicel does not want to yield any competitive ground to LIME, especially when it is likely that it could create a momentum that is likely to snatch many customers that Digicel once claimed as theirs ‘for life’.

What I have not seen so far is one well-argued reason from Digicel as to why the merger will be bad for the region and for Jamaica.

To me, that is the bottom line. If it’s good for the country, Digicel, which has always prided itself on being a good corporate citizen, should look outside of its own narrow interests and bring reality to its corporate citizenship. The first step would be to embrace the merger, head back to the gym, and don’t ever become like the fat kid that it whipped 13 years ago.