Susan Gordon, Business Reporter

EZ Mobile's Kingston office.

EZ Mobile, a young Cayman-owned telecommunications provider, is trying to establish itself in Jamaica as the major long distance overseas-calling provider.

The company, which was launched in July this year, says it has the network and the calling plan which offers the cheapest and most feasible plan of its current competitors.

Its service is powered by Cable and Wireless Jamaica Limited (C&WJ), which EZ pays to host its network.

Managing Director Edward dePass, whose history in the industry spans about six years, said EZ Mobile was essentially offering its clients 67 cents per minute to call overseas.

"We hope to become the major long distance overseas-calling player," dePass told Sunday Business. "We use new handsets and have islandwide coverage."

He declined to name the other principals in the company, saying he was its primary face and a shareholder, but admitted it was Cayman owned.

The investors put US$1 million in the startup.

EZ's customer base in its six months of operation has signed up more than 10,000 clients, dePass said.

DePass, who said the company already had over 10,000 customers in its six months of operation, explained that he started the EZ Mobile plan because he was dissatisfied with the service of other providers.

Former digicel dealer

He was a former dealer for Digicel Jamaica Limited in 2001 before switching to MiPhone. He now competes for business with those two companies.

DePass claims to be the creator of the long distance calling plan which MiPhone had adopted as its WorldPhone plan and which resembled the former MegaFone plan.

The EZ plan offers 25 hours or 1,500 minutes of call time for a flat fee of $999 per month, which works out to about 67 cents per minute to call North America, Canada and United Kingdom landlines.

MiPhone's package is $999 for 1,003 minutes.

The MegaFone network, which seemed to have been EZ's closest rival, was offering $65 per day, which amounted to $65 for 24 hours of call time, or 1,440 minutes; or $1,150 per month for unlimited calls.

MegaFone is currently out of the picture after a dispute with MiPhone, which was hosting its network.

Flow's prices are $1,074 for 180 minutes to the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, tax included, and unlimited for $1,914.

EZ mobile handles the sales and marketing side of the business, and pays C&WJ to be hosted on its platform.

At 10,000 clients, the company is at about one seventh the market it hopes to garner.

"We hope to become the major long distance oversees-calling player in Jamaica and the Caribbean," said dePass. "Our target market is to have 50,000 to 75,000 users."

To this end, he said, the company plans to come out with a Caribbean plan, which would work similarly to the existing U.S. and U.K. plan, where Jamaicans can call anywhere in the Caribbean at fixed rates.

susan.gordon@gleanerjm.com