There’s a direct link between lower telecommunications costs and the price of development, according to the Bahamas Real Estate Association President Garth Buckner, who said his organization is welcoming DigiTel Networks’ recent acquisition of a telecommunications license.
DigiTel Networks is a local telecommunications company which recently obtained a 15-year license, brining an end to the monopoly of the Bahamas Telecommunication Company (BTC).
Effective January 1, 2004, DigiTel, a trading arm of Systems Resource Group (SRG), will begin to offer telecommunications services here.
The company will offer services such as voice, data and broadband via wireless towers. Subscribers will be able to easily and quickly self install small wireless adapters anywhere for PC or telephone connectivity, company officials said.
Mr. Buckner, one of the developers of the Sandyport community in western New Providence, believes it is a good idea to break the telecommunications monopoly.
It’s all around good news for developers, he said.
“Currently when a developer goes to develop a property or a parcel of land in The Bahamas, [he or she has] to pay quite a substantial amount of money in developer contributions to put all of the telephone infrastructure in place,” Mr. Buckner said. “Now with competition coming on line, that cost should either go down or be eliminated entirely.”
He believes the new company could eliminate the need for underground cables to be laid.
Mr. Buckner added that when the service becomes available, there should be a decline in property prices.
But not everyone expects DigiTel to provide significant competition to BTC.
In fact, one SRG engineer told the Bahama Journal that, “Even though their idea is a good one, they are a small company and they would be particularly insignificant if BTC is privatized.”
The Real Estate Association, meanwhile, welcomes the privatization of BTC.
“We think that it is far more important to have an effectively run telephone infrastructure in this country than it is for the government to deal with it,” Mr. Buckner said. “We think from an economic perspective, the Bahamian people would gain much more in having an operational telecommunication phone system both in competition with BTC and one that offers more services.”
By Yvette Rolle-Major, The Bahama Journal
