By Howard Walker, Staff ReporterAMERICAN TELECOM giant AT&T will be Jamaica's newest cellular provider after finally agreeing to a fee of $300 million.
AT&T was granted the cellular licence after negotiating with the Government for two years, and will become the island's fourth cellular provider, joining Cable & Wireless, Digicel and Oceanic Digital, formerly Centennial.
"I got the money that I wanted," Phillip Paulwell, Minister of Commerce, Science and Technology told The Gleaner in an interview.
"We have been arguing for two years. They wanted to give us $50 million, but I held out for two years," the Minister added.
"Next week their people will be coming to sign, it's a done deal," he said confidently.
According to Paulwell, AT&T was bought out by Cingular, the largest cellular company in the world and "with their combined strength, it's a major coup for Jamaica."
Combined, Cingular and AT&T Wireless will have 46 million subscribers, enough to leapfrog Verizon Wireless' market-leading customer base of 37.5 million. This is according to an Associated Press report last Wednesday.
AT&T is in large measure the history of the telephone in the United States. Its roots stretch back to 1875, with founder Alexander Graham Bell's invention of the telephone. During the 19th century, AT&T became the parent company of the Bell System, the American telephone monopoly.
The Bell System provided what was by all accounts the best telephone service in the world.
The system broke up into eight companies in 1984 by an agreement between AT&T and the U.S. Department of Justice. From 1984 until 1996, AT&T was an integrated telecommunications services and equipment company, succeeding in a newly competitive environment.
Today, AT&T is rapidly evolving from a company that handles mostly long-distance voice calls to a company that provides data and voice communications over any distance through its two operating units, AT&T Business and AT&T Consumer.
FULL LIBERALISATION
For years Cable & Wireless (C&WJ) monopolised the Jamaican market and in 1999, the Government, led by Paulwell, negotiated an end to monopoly status of the then communications giant. The move, Paulwell said, was to ensure the full liberalisation of the local telecommunications sector.
In April 2001, when Digicel launched their GSM mobile service in Jamaica, the Irish company anticipated reaching the 100,000-customer plateau by the end of its first year in operation. Instead, they hit the 100,000 mark a mere 100 days after launch.
The two major players, Digicel and C&WJ, have claimed their markets. Digicel claims to be the market leader with more than 850,000 subscribers, while C&WJ claims over 600,000 subscribers. Centennial is yet to make a significant mark.
