Keith Collister, Contributor
Faster and cheaper Internet access will be just one of the advantages of Jamaica's improved cable links. In this file photo, Amelia Thompson, (centre), a second year student of Colegate University College in New York and the Caribbean Students Association helps some Grade 5 students of Excelsior Primary School along with their teacher Tanya Bindloss, to connect to the Internet. - IAN ALLEN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
RICHARD PARDY is planning to rock your world. The chief executive officer of FibraLink Jamaica come to the island only one year and one month ago, and was going to complete a U.S. $45 million local segment of a massive trans-Caribbean fibreoptic cable project.
That project could have taken three to four years, but local commercial service starts at the end of March.
The FibraLink project is of critical importance to Jamaica as it is the "last material leg of the deregulation of the telecom sector," he said. As a result of this investment, Mr. Pardy believes "Bandwidth will no longer be a constraint to development in Jamaica either in terms of quantity or price point."
He estimates that FibraLink will increase bandwidth capacity to the island by a factor of about sixty times over the current 2.5 gigabits per second, or enough capacity to give every household in Jamaica access to broadband.
There is a digital divide and the bad news is that Jamaica is on the wrong side of it, he said. "In the U.S. broadband penetration is 30 per cent, in Canada 35 per cent, in Bahamas 40 per cent, while in Jamaica only three per cent of households have broadband. The submarine cable system we are installing will provide the infrastructure for Jamaica to be on the right side of the divide."
FibraLink is one of two companies granted licences by the Government to lay and operate two submarine fibre optic networks that will link Jamaica to North America, and the rest of the world. Fibralink and Trans-Caribbean Cable Company Limited (TCCCL), are expected to make a total investment of $5 billion in the creation of undersea links.
PRICE CUTS
This was aimed at providing cheap high speed broadband Internet and other data services at prices, which would be at least 70 per cent below the then existing prices.
"FibraLink is actually a wholesaler of bandwidth, so our customers are essentially the other telecoms providers, including companies like Digicel and Cable and Wireless," he said. "Up to now, you have not seen a competitive landscape developing in the delivery of broadband. You won't see a huge upswing in broadband deployment until at least two strong broadband competitors emerge."
He adds that without a robust broadband deployment, "we cannot get a return on our investment in FibraLink. The bigger part of our investment will ultimately be retail broadband, which is why we have established Flow."
Flow is a member of Columbus Communications group of companies, a CARICOM-based telecommunications provider, which already provides telecommunications solutions in 17 Caribbean countries. Flow's goal in Jamaica is to offer Jamaican businesses ultra high speed Internet, digital landline service and digital cable TV with over 250 channels from one service provider.
According to Pardy, Flow has all the requisite telecom licences, has applied for cable TV licences from the Broadcasting Commission, and is in the process of closing several acquisitions of cable telephone operations. Flow's objective in 2006 is to provide broadband access to 100,000 homes in Jamaica.
In addition, they anticipate increasing investment by Cable & Wireless in fixed line broadband infrastructure, and also by the wireless providers, so that in a year there will be three to four market participants in broadband, which should start a relatively rapid growth of broadband in Jamaican households.
WHO IS RICHARD PARDY?
A Canadian, Pardy worked for 10 years managing Cable Bahamas which provides that country with the most advanced broadband network in the Caribbean. It was also extremely financially rewarding to shareholders with a 900 per cent return on their original investment.
He is now trying to do in Jamaica what he did in The Bahamas, with the goal of Jamaica supplanting The Bahamas as the most advanced broadband network in this hemisphere.
The main shareholders in Columbus Communications, the parent company of Flow and FibraLink, are Canadian John Risley, chairman of Canadian listed Clearwater Foods and Michael Lee Chin through the Barbados subsidiary of AIC. The firm also has some institutional money from private equity funds.
