CABLE & WIRELESS Jamaica (C&WJ) has announced significant reductions in the prices of some of its internet and data products to benefit especially corporate clients as part of a new thrust to drive the revenue earning potential of its value-added services.
In making the announcement on Wednesday, product and marketing manager Robert Whitehorne said the decreases, which took effect at the start of April, include a 53 per cent reduction in the prices of international private circuits, a 52 per cent reduction on dedicated Internet services, an additional seven per cent discount for a one-year contract and 10 per cent for a two-year contract on local leased circuits, a 25 per cent discount on the local transport for dedicated Internet access, and a 20 per cent decrease in its Internet flat rate from US$50 to US$40.
Speaking at a press briefing organised by C&WJ at Devon House, St. Andrew, Mr. Whitehorne also said the company was in the final stages of its preparation to making Internet packages more affordable for schools, even as it sought to increase the technology's access to those institutions.
Also speaking at the function, IP and Data Solutions sales and marketing manager, Peter Sewell, noted that the Internet accounts for some 30 per cent of telecommunications revenue globally, but only 10 per cent of C&WJ's revenue base came from those services.
The new thrust was to drive the company's revenue earnings to 30 per cent from its Internet service over the next 18 months, said Mr. Sewell, noting that would also have to mean an expansion of its existing market share.
He said C&WJ currently controls 53 per cent of the island's market share of 70,000 or so Internet subscribers, with about 13 other Internet Service Providers (ISPs) controlling the remaining 47 per cent.
Senior Vice-President for Retail Services, Geoff Houston, said the company had no choice but to increase the accessibility of the Internet. "That's where the world is going," he said.
Referring to Government's recent policy to immediately remove General Consumption Tax (GCT) from the sale and importation of computers, the company's officials lauded the move and said it was an opportune time to further promote the Internet as a tool of communication.
Mr. Whitehorne also announced the launch of C&WJ's new dedicated web-hosting service, which, according to a release circulated at the news briefing, would provide, among other things, "dedicated Internet and processing power for customers to host e-commerce (and) e-business."
This site, the company said, would be particularly applicable to large companies that wish to have exclusive web-hosting facilities. The company said the dedicated web-hosting facility would offer a "highly secure, scalable and reliable service with access to one of the fastest Internet backbones in the world, at exceedingly competitive prices.
" According to C&WJ, "this service offers customers a world-class Internet presence, right here in Jamaica, with faster downloads, no congestion, zero per cent packet loss, higher bandwidths and faster transmission of larger quantities of data."
The company said improvements to its service were made possible by a $12 million commissioning, in February, of an N3 aggregator node linked by the high speed, high capacity Maya 1 fibre cable system to the C&W USA global Internet network backbone infrastructure, which positions C&WJ as a tier one Internet service provider.
