Richard Pardy, chief executive officer of Columbus Communications, parent company of Flow Jamaica.

Flow Jamaica, having commissioned its new undersea fibre-optic cable to provide connectivity at greater speed, now says it is pressing ahead with plans to develop a US$15-million ($1.7-billion) call centre in Portmore.

The call centre is to be staffed by 400 to 500 customer care agents.

But the company also said the US$80-million ($5.7 billion) fibre-optic cable system, which links Jamaica to South America via Colombia and the United States, via Florida, has sparked queries from other call centre investors in Jamaica.

'Unprecedented' capacity

Richard Pardy, chief executive officer of Columbus Communications, which operates as Flow, said in a company statement that the system affords Jamaica 'unprecedented' capacity, resiliency and reliability for data communications.

Companies that require large bandwidth or direct international links, such as hotels, banks and telecoms, said Flow, can purchase it at cheaper rates.

"Our commercial sales director has already had calls from telecommunication companies that want to set up call centres in Montego Bay," said Denise Williams, public relations manager.

Dominant cable company

Flow, which is now the dominant cable company, whose reach, through acquisition of smaller players and the ongoing build-out of its digital network, has spread to several parishes.

The acquisitions have swelled Flow's customer base, but the company has never actually commented on the numbers.

"We have been having difficulty in our response time, so we want to expand our call centre," said Williams.

dionne.rose@gleanerjm.com