The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

 Digicel leaves : we lose! What kind of statement is this you ask ?

What does Digi leaving have to do with “we” the local consumers losing?

Why shouldn’t we be grinning from ear to ear like all of the other  interested entities: the unions, the two remaining bidders and some members of the political class.

Let me tell you why :

• The business of telecommunications is BIG BIG business generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue in a year but also requiring hundreds of millions of dollars to be reinvested into new networks, upgrades,  and expansion in order to ensure state of the art technologies to deliver superior services.

• Digi was the investor in the bidding process with the deepest pockets and the biggest player operating in thirty-two markets worldwide. An added advantage is that Digi has no shareholders and would have had greater flexibility to invest extensively in the CellCo with no shareholder pressure of having to produce immediate profits. Hence a larger investment in modern infrastructure was certain.

• Digi has a proven track record in our region for entering a previously monopolist market and running away with the incumbent’s customers in record time because of the value proposition Digi provides for consumers.

• Digi as a competitor, forces the incumbent to up its game in network quality and customer services whilst lowering prices across the board – all benefits of a liberalised and highly competitive market where the customer is king.

• Digi has the knack of being able to blend into the country’s culture and local population with ease in a grassroot business model that engenders goodwill rather than hostility from the locals.

• Digi’s investment in its own infrastructure would have ensured our country a new state of the art quality mobile network.

• Digi has recently extended its business plan beyond a mobile centric service to wireless broadband and data services, pay TV and IPTV and fixed voice services. Eventual entry into those liberalised markets locally would have provided much needed additional competition in those markets with concomitant, improved quality of network and customer services and lower prices.

• Digi’s presence in the bidding process for the spectrum auction would have provided the necessary competitive tension and bidding war to force the auction price higher and higher. Spectrum auctions for mobile licences can conclude in huge sums of money for the Public Treasury. For example, US$70m in the Dominican Republic, US$115m in Jamaica, US$270m in Ukraine and  C$2.11bn in Canada.

Simply put, Digi has a proven track record of success in new mobile markets in the region and would certainly have provided the competition necessary to bring our out of step mobile market into line with the best practice countries in the world.

The two remaining bidders appear not to have a track record of any significance if at all! Did the Bahamian consumer lose big time when Digi left? The educated and considered answer must be a resounding YOU BETCHA !

FELICITY L JOHNSON

Nassau,

May 6, 2015.