Patron Mavlett Robinson, uses one of the new public telephones located across the island. She was spotted in a businessplace in Portmore, St. Catherine, yesterday. - Rudolph Brown/Staff Photographer PATRONS OF bars and many other small businesses across the island have been exposed to a new telephone service over the past year.
With this service, telephone calls incur charges of between $20 and $40 for a two-minute call within the same parish or out of the parish to a Cable & Wireless Jamaica (C&WJ) instrument, and $60 for a similar call to a Digicel Jamaica unit. Users of the unique public telephone are required to deposit $20 coins to use the instrument.
Some units are imported and owned by individuals, one industry source told Wednesday Business.
The telephones are also being operated by an entity called J-Tel, which the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) said is not on their list of companies granted a licence to operate a domestic carrier service. The OUR's communication services manager David Geddes, said any entity offering telecommunication services locally, including any hotel which sells telephone calls to their clients, is required to have a domestic service provider licence to do so.
A Cable & Wireless spokesman said the company was not aware of the J-Tel operations.
The industry source said there had probably been no official reaction to the new service because it helped to fill a pressing need in some small businesses. He said customers and staff often needed to make telephone calls from the premises, and the new telephones simplified the process for operators with J-Tel sharing the revenue from the instruments with them
