Business

Starting this year, LIME will be pouring up to US$100 million (J$8.6 billion) into capital projects in Jamaica, more than a third of which will fund a new submarine cable.

The telecommunications group will also be spending US$500 million in its other Caribbean operations over a five-year span.

The fibre-optic link, connecting Jamaica to the British Virgin Islands and the Dominican Republic, is a US$35-million project. It is separate from the deal struck with Venezuelan firm Telecomunicaciones Gran Caribe to build a fibre-optic link from Jamaica to Cuba.

Plans for Jamaica also includes launch of subscriber television.

"Over the next five years, we intend to invest more than US$600 million in our 13 business units across the region to improve the services that we offer, and to roll out the kind of new technologies and innovative services that will help us to retain our present customers and attract new ones," said LIME Caribbean chief marketing officer and chairman of LIME Jamaica, Chris Dehring, at a media briefing in Kingston on Wednesday.

The investment is geared towards improving broadband and entertainment services, while the new fibre ring will open up data traffic. The Jamaican company had previously announced a J$3-billion build-out of broadband in Montego Bay.

Jamaicans will be the first to experience LIME Caribbean's subscriber television offering in a matter of months.

"We are launching television by the end of this year, LIME TV — real state-of-the-art television services which will be the value for money proposition," said Dehring.

mark.titus@gleanerjm.com