Dionne Rose, Staff Reporter
PHILLIP PAULWELL, Minister of Commerce, Science and Technology, has indicated that he will sanction United States (U.S.) telecommunications giant AT&T for its failure to commence services.
"I have asked the Spectrum Management Authority to notify them that they are in breach of the regulations and that we intend to deal with the matter quickly," he said.
NO OFFICIAL WORD
The Government had sold its third cellular licence to AT&T two years ago, but there has been no official word on when it would start providing services. Subsequent to the grant of the licence, AT&T had been sold to Cingular Wireless.
"While we await their determination, I have to say Mr. Speaker, that time has run out on them, because we did give them one year to utilise the Spectrum; they have failed to do that," said Minister Paulwell, during his contribution to the 2005/06 Sectoral Debate in Gordon House on Wednesday.
"We cannot have Spectrum, which is valuable, going to waste and we can't have a company allocating Spectrum without my approval," he pointed out.
Mr. Paulwell further explained that the Jamaican policy prohibits the sale of telecommunication licences or transfer of licences without the minister's approval.
FULL PAYMENT
In the meantime, Minister Paulwell said that the Government had received the full payment of $360 million for the licence. This, he said, has brought the total number of money collected on the sale cellular licences to $4 billion.
On the matter of theft of cellular phones, Minister Paulwell indicated that legislation would be put in place to deal with it, but he also issued a strong warning to parents not to buy expensive phones for their children and to use their phones carefully.
