By Al Edwards, Business Co-ordinatorOCEANIC DIGITAL Communications (ODC), the United States telecoms company that last year acquired 100 per cent interest in Centennial Digital Jamaica's (CDJ) operations, is to complete its islandwide cellular network by the end of October.
Speaking to The Financial Gleaner, Oceanic's president and chief operating officer, Albert Gencarella, said: "Our investors were nervous at best when we first got here. They didn't know whether this investment would slip into the abyss so they wanted to proceed with caution, hence the decision not to go nationwide all in one go.
MEND OUR FENCES
"We decided to mend our fences and reassure the Government that we could stay in business. We have now completed the southern side of the island. For this year we have opened sites in Portmore, May Pen, Mandeville, Santa Cruz, Black River and we will complete Ocho Rios in the next two or three weeks. We are looking to wrap up Montego Bay in August and be totally nationwide by October."
Mr. Gencarella said Oceanic's investment in Jamaica was about US$130 million, which he pointed out was well below Digicel's. Oceanic has endeavoured to be competitive and has used the strategy of slashing its international call prices particular over holiday periods. This proved a big hit with its customers and has enticed more to sign up.
In January, it reduced local calls from $7.00 to $4.00 a minute with its competitors coming in at $10.00 a minute. Only last week it again slashed its international call rate from an average $20 per minute for the Labour Day weekend. Earlier this month it cut its international rate for Mother's Day weekend, when it was lowered to $7.00 per minute. All calls are billed on a per second basis.
"Our reductions have been very significant because it has brought in a lot of customers. In fact, since February of this year, we have increased our customer base by over 50 per cent and now we have 45,000 customers. When we go nationwide we are expecting a customer base of around 85,000 customers. What has also happened is that the usage of our system has increased. At $4.00 a minute people are finding real value and so a lot of people are using our network to communicate and this means we are now competing with the land line service," he said.
Mr. Gencarella pointed out that since the telecoms industry was deregulated in March this year, Oceanic no longer has to go through Cable & Wireless to purchase its international long distance service. This has reduced the company's international costs and means international rates will in turn come down.
REDUCE RATES
"We will try to reduce rates over the weekends to evaluate how customers respond and just how efficient our systems are. With the Mothers' Day weekend our customer volume on international calls on the network went up ninefold," said the chief operating officer.
He is mindful of the perception that people have of Oceanic, which prevents them from subscribing to the service. This stigma results from the fact that the company did not initially go islandwide. The message he wants to get across is one of a service that has quality and reliability, backed up by price shifting and promotional activities on a limited scale. Oceanic will be putting emphasis on its data service, which it hopes will prove a winner with the Jamaican public.
DIGICEL
It took Digicel just two years to achieve a customer base of 700,000, bringing it neck and neck with Cable & Wireless, a feat that Mr. Gencarella regards as remarkable.
"Digicel came here as the second player in the market and took advantage of Cable & Wireless' weaknesses. We now have to grind our way back into a strong position and grind is the operative word. What we can be is more affordable and seek to attract Jamaica's corporate environment. We are targeting companies with a monthly unlimited calls flat fee for those who make a lot of calls on the network."
His view of the telecoms sector in Jamaica is upbeat and positive, pointing to players who have entered the market and are prospering. He added that as such, Oceanic was now doing some work with both Infochannel and Steve Twomey's new company Reliant. The prevailing economic environment, he said, was hurting a bit and the new imposition of an increase from 15 per cent to 20 per cent on call rates for GCT purposes will have an adverse impact of sorts on usage.
"The telecoms sector in Jamaica will bring much employment and will seriously transform the lifestyles of Jamaicans. It will also bring wireless technology to the country, which will not be cheap but affordable."
Last year, The Financial Gleaner reported that Oceanic was looking to sell the building on Knutsford Boulevard that housed Centennial's headquarters for US$5 million. It now transpires that the telecoms company plans to keep it and lease office space instead.
Oceanic employs the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology widely believed to be the state-of-the-art in the business. Chief Executive Officer, Rafael Salome, has promised Jamaicans that Oceanic will deliver crisp and clear signals, voice clarity and little or no dropped calls. He will be kept to his promise.
