INTERNATIONAL MEMBERSHIP

Jamaica is a member of the International Telecommunications Union as well as the Caribbean Telecommunications Union.
 

LIBERALIZATION

The liberalization of the Jamaican Telecommunications market began in 1997 when Jamaica made market access commitments to the World Trade Organization in relation to basic telecommunications and value added services. In 1999 the Government tabled in Parliament a modern telecommunications policy which addressed such issues as the role of the regulator, negotiations with the public telephone company, liberalization, universal service, interconnection, and spectrum management.

On September 30, 1999, the Government of Jamaica signed a historic agreement with Cable and Wireless Jamaica, the then monopoly telecommunications provider, for the liberalization of the telecommunications sector in three phases over a three year period.

Consequent to the Agreement, the Government sought to jump start the liberalization process with the auctioning of 2 mobile telecommunications licences even before the necessary legislation was in place to grant the licences.

In December 1999, companies were invited to bid for the two licences which would be awarded as soon as the proposed Telecommunications Bill was passed. The Government determined that at least one of the licences should utilize GSM Technology. Cellular One Caribbean Limited emerged the winner of one of the licences with a bid of US$ 45 million, for the 800 Mhz band using CDMA Technology. This bid was US$5million dollars more than the Government’s reserve price. No winner was declared for the GSM licence as no bid exceeded the Government’s reserve price of US$30 Million dollars.

The Government of Jamaica then decided to hold a second auction in January 2000. Mossel Limited a start-up company owned by Irish entrepreneur Dennis O’Brian emerged the only successful bidder for the GSM licence with a bid of US$ 47.5 million dollars. This bid was US$17 million more than they had bid in December 1999.

On March 1, 2000, Jamaica’s new Telecommunications Act which repealed the Telephone Act of 1893 and sections of the Radio and Telegraph Control Act came into effect.

The liberalization of the Jamaican Telecommunications market was a 3 phase process. Phase One commenced on March 1, 2000 and was for a period of 18 months. During that time the Minister was only empowered to issue Cellular, Reseller (Data, Internet and International Voice), Free Trade Zone Service and Carrier licences.

Phase Two commenced September 1, 2001 and extended the Minister's power to grant licences to include domestic carrier and service provider licences as well as Internet licences for licensed cable operators.

Phase Three commenced March 1, 2003 and fully liberalized the Jamaican Telecommunications market.

In May 2007 the then Ministry of Industry, Technology, Energy and commerce published an updated draft Telecommunications Policy and began consultation on the proposed policy. To date the policy has not yet been formally adopted by the Government. The policy may be downloaded by clicking on this link>>.

 

LEGISLATION

The principal legislation governing telecommunications in Jamaica is the Telecommunications Act, 2000. Other relevant Acts include the Radio and Telegraph Control Act, the Fair Competition Act, the Broadcasting and Radio Re-Diffusion Act and the Office of Utilities Regulation Act.

The principal telecommunications regulator is the Office of Utilities Regulation. The Spectrum Management Authority regulates the radio frequency spectrum on behalf of the Minister, while the Broadcasting Commission regulates the broadcasting and subscriber television industry. The Government has expressed an interest in creating a Super Regulator to regulate the converged sectors of telecommunications, broadcasting and spectrum management. To date no such regulator has been created nor has any legislation creating this regulator been tabled in Parliament. However the draft telecommunications policy does make reference to a single regulator.

The Fair Trading Commission regulates competition and has tended to defer to the OUR in regulating competition in the telecommunications sector. With full liberalization this may change as the issues become more about competitive practices and anti-competitive behaviour and less about telecommunications regulation.
 

INDUSTRY PROFILE

The Jamaican Telecommunications industry currently comprises carriers and service providers ie. mobile carriers and mobile service providers ( which currently are the same licences,) internet service providers, data service providers, domestic carriers, domestic service providers, international voice service providers and international voice carriers.

There are 3 mobile providers: Cable and Wireless Jamaica which introduced cellular service in Jamaica in the early 1990s and currently provides services under the name “bMobile”; Mossel Jamaica Limited trading as Digicel launched its services in April 2001and Centennial Jamaica Limited which launched operations in December 2001 and traded under the name MiPhone.

Prior to liberalization Cable and Wireless Jamaica had 130,000 mobile subscribers having offered the service for 10 years. The total market potential in 2000 at the time of the cellular auction was considered to be 500,000 subscribers. As of June 2008 Cable and Wireless Jamaica has in excess of 660,000 subscribers, Digicel has approximately 1,900,000 subscribers and MiPhone has approximately 220,000 subscribers.

An original condition of the licences granted via the auction was that the licences had to provide 95% Geographic coverage of the island in 5 years since then the licences held by Oceanic have been amended to reflect 90% population coverage. With competition Jamaica has moved from a teledensity of 17% based on landline users to a teledensity of over 100% including landline and wireless users.

In 2001 the World Bank’s International Financial Corporation became an 8% shareholder in Digicel having taken a US$ 8 million equity investment and provided a US$ 12 million loan to the company. Also in 2001 the majority shares in Cellular One Caribbean were purchased by Centennial Corp and Centennial Jamaica became Jamaica’s CDMA telecommunications provider.

In 2002 Centennial Jamaica was bought out by Oceanic Digital Jamaica (ODJ) and the Government tried to repeat its successes in the first two auctions by seeking to auction a fourth mobile licence. This proved unsuccessful as the only bidder was AT&T Corporation and its bid did not meet the Governments reserve price.

In 2003, Cable and Wireless launched its GSM service and so now offers cellular? using both TDMA and GSM technology. In December 2003 the Inter-American Development Bank approved a US$30 million private sector loan to Oceanic Digital Jamaica to enable the mobile telecommunications company to complete its island wide network.

In April 2004 the Government concluded Two and a Half years of negotiations with AT&T Wireless and granted AT&T Wireless a cellular licence for US$6 million dollars.

AT&T announced that its initial focus of its Jamaican network build out will be on serving the needs of AT&T subscribers and roamers that visit or conduct business in Jamaica and the Caribbean. Shortly thereafter AT&T’s Caribbean interest was acquired by Cingular whose interests were subsequently acquired by Digicel and the AT&T licence returned to the Government of Jamaica.

The issuing of a fourth cellular licence has been dogged with challenges and controversy. The Government in 2006 advised the public that it would be issuing two new cellular licence to Wire 9 and Wiiscom. However this was not to be.

In 2007 ODJ was acquired by América Móvil and is expected to launch a GSM cellular service in Jamaica around August 2008.
 

For more information on the Jamaican Telecommunications Industry and the Telecommunications Act 2000 go to the Publications Page.


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