According to principals, the company intends to “offer new and innovative” services not being provided by the Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BaTelCo).
DigiTel will be building a wireless infrastructure with cell towers extended around New Providence, Grand Bahama and Abaco.
The network will be built and expanded over time with an international submarine fibre optic cable to link the wireless infrastructure with overseas telecommunications carriers.
SRG, a data integration and communications company, and the parent company of DigiTel, first received an operating licence from the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) on Feb. 26, 2002, but did not officially start up until Oct. 23, of the same year.
Two million dollars has already been invested by the company to provide the services, and an additional $12 million is expected during the next two years.
Data services will be available as early as January 2004 with the first cell tower to be installed in August. Voice services will be available later.
The licence gives DigiTel exclusive rights to the 2150-2162 MHz and 2500-2690 MHZ segments of the radio spectrum in New Providence, Grand Bahama and Abaco.
The company also has the right to offer telecommunications services of ‘every description’ to those same islands.
Cable television and cellular mobile voice telephony are not included.
The licence also requires that 54 percent of the population is covered throughout the service area of New Providence with 90 percent population coverage by October 2007.
President of SRG, Paul Hutton-Ashkenny said Digitel should not be viewed as a replacement for BaTelCo, but as an additional choice.
“The new telephony company will be doing business as DigiTel Networks and our telecommunications licence will permit us to offer the first and only competitive voice services in the country to those historically offered by BaTelCo,” he said.
“In direct competition with BTC,” Mr. Hutton-Ashkenny continued, “we will offer a full range of fixed telephony and mobile data services giving consumers a choice in both telephone and broadband provider companies for the first time ever. History is being made and in more ways than one, because DigiTel brings a wireless world to both the residential and corporate markets of The Bahamas.”
Although DigiTel will use the operational resources of the existing group of companies of SRG, it is expected that by 2004, the current head count of approximately 30 people will more than double.
DigiTel will operate from SRG’s existing corporate headquarters in Centreville House, Collins Avenue. New offices will eventually be established in Grand Bahama, moving operations from SRG’s existing premises in the International Building, Freeport. An office is also expected in Marsh Harbour.
DigiTel will offer a full range of business data and voice services where each DigiTel subscriber will be able to connect to the network for telephony and broadband services via a simple, portable radio device at home. The device will auto sense the nearest cell tower and the strongest signal.
This would allow direct and easy connection of computer for broadband internet or other data services, or an adapter to allow connection of standard telephones.
“So what DigiTel is saying,” the SRG president said, “is that there is a gray market out there of people who will use new services that DigiTel is able to offer, like mobility. We are actually adding to the size of the market; what we might do is take back some of that gray market that is using call back or voice-over internet type services.
“Between BaTelCo and ourselves, we are going to add to the size of the pie. Certainly we are going to be getting customers, but they are not necessarily BaTelCo’s customers today; they are people who we think we will be able to offer new and innovative services to those that are not currently served by BaTelCo’s offerings. So we are not a threat to BaTelCo, but a complementary to BaTelCo.”
Because it is “not environmentally-friendly” for DigiTel to build new towers, the company will engage in ‘facilities sharing’ with BTC using some of their towers to set up its system.
“The company does want to duplicate infrastructure because of the environmental issues involved,” Hutton-Ashkenny said.
“So they have enshrined in DigiTel and BTC’s licence, a concept known as ‘Facilities Access’ or ‘Facilities Sharing’ so that DigiTel has the right to use BTC’s already-constructed towers. So the landscape won’t have to marred by putting up towers of our own for our services because it makes no environmental sense to do that.”
Once services are established, DigiTel will invite the public to participate in ownership of the company through an Initial Public Offering. The purpose is for private sector funding to build the island-wide network of wireless towers, in return for shares in the company.
Stating that Bahamians now have another choice to set up a professional career in communications, Chairman of SRG, Dr. David Allen, said: “SRG is a perfect example of that philosophy in practice. As a result of a telecommunications licence that will end BaTelCo’s monopoly in voice telephony, SRG has to date invested $2 million in the economy as we advance towards introduction of services.”
He continued: “We have hired many Bahamians in new positions, and through further expansion in New Providence, Grand Bahama and Abaco we will continue to create new job opportunities and training for many more Bahamians in the field of next generation telecommunications.”
Dr. Allen said the development has nothing to do with the privatisation bid for BTC and its existence is due to laid groundwork for competition with BaTelCo via the Government’s telecommunications liberation policy which recognised telecommunications as central to the economic development of the country.
“As a result of this project, international businesses and Bahamian consumers alike, will be able to take advantage of technological advances that are available in only the most advanced jurisdictions worldwide,” he said.
According to Dr. Allen, “The Bahamas will position itself as an innovative jurisdiction for e-commerce services, and send a clear signal to competing jurisdictions with respect of continuance of its leadership role in regional telecommunications deregulation.”
SRG is a group of companies which includes Digital Systems (Bahamas) Limited (DSBL), Internet (Bahamas) Limited (IBL) and Bahamas On-line. DSBL was first incorporated in 1989 as a systems and network integrator. IBL and Bahamas On-line were instrumental in introducing the internet to local subscribers in 1995 and remains a leading internet service provider.
DigiTel services include:
* Very high speed broadband internet
* Mobile broadband to remotely connect office teleworkers to their office networks and the wider internet.
* International circuits
* Network, server and PBX hardware, together with business consulting
* Hosting and co-location services
* Managed networks
* Domestic, including inter-island and long-distance voice services
* Optional digital and CLASS services.
By Lisa Albury, The Nassau Guardian
