By Al Edwards, Business Co-ordinator 
Miller
TELECOMS GIANT Cable & Wireless (C&W) yesterday announced that it will be making substantial investments in both GSM and GPRS networks across the Caribbean and expects to have access to these networks in eight months time.
This announcement was made by C&W West Indies chief executive officer Errald Miller, at the company's annual Horizon Technology showcase at the Pegasus Hotel. He said that the parent company had invested over £1 billion in the region (J$73 billion) over the last five years and that the company was looking to make further investments in the region particularly with its Internet and mobile telephone division.
"C&W must move to keep its solutions apace with its market requirements. I am, therefore, pleased to advise that C&W (West Indies), including C&W Jamaica, will be investing in a GSM/GPRS network to augmemt its TDMA offering," he said. "C&W Mobile will be bringing you the best of three worlds across the Caribbean and the world offering 'best of three worlds' TDMA/GPRS/GSM."
General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is a data transmission technique based on packet technology versus the traditional circuit switching.
GPRS is characterised by the delivery of high rates with minimum call set-up delays.
Mr. Miller said the benefits to be expected are:
Coverage expansion
New Services
New phones with GAIT-tri mode capability
Unparelleled international roaming
3G compatibility
"This will open more opportunities for new services and roaming to our customers and will be up and running in Jamaica within the next 8 months, " said Mr. Miller.
C&W's main rival in Jamaica, Digicel, currently employs the GSM network, which is very popular in Europe. Digicel is believed to have approximately 400,000 mobile phone users, roughly the same number as C&WJ.
"Cable & Wireless still manages to maintain one of the strongest, if not the strongest balance sheet in the industry and reported net cash of £2.6 billion as at its financial year ending March 31, 2002," Mr. Miller said.
"Looking ahead at the Group's operations, we expect that the fallout and consolidation that is taking place in the market will be one that favours the company," said Mr. Miller.
He also pointed out that C&W Caribbean operations faced a challenging financial year with that market proving stagnant.
"At the GDP level, our major markets, Jamaica, Barbados and Cayman, were pretty stagnant, with only Jamaica reporting marginal growth. "Of course, economic growth in these countries, which is primarily driven by tourism and financial services, were adversely impacted by the effects of the tragic events of blacklisting by the OECD and the general perception it created of the state of offshore financial services in the region," noted Mr.Miller.
