TeleBarbados officially breaks Cable and Wireless fixed line monopoly

Bridgetown, Barbados, June 16, 2006 - TeleBarbados Inc., the company set to challenge Cable & Wireless' monopoly over fixed line services, has officially launched in Barbados with St. Lucia next in line.

TeleBarbados Inc. is Barbados’ second domestic telecommunications service provider.  It has officially opened its doors for business and is already providing commercial customers with high-speed Internet and digital communications services through both fibre-optic and WiMax connections. Interim general manager designate, Brian Harvey, said that residential high-speed Internet access should be available by year-end with full coverage of the island by the end of 2007. However, he said some regulatory and interconnectivity issues had delayed TeleBarbados' ability to offer residential and commercial customers telephone and long-distance services immediately.

The company, of which Barbados Light & Power Holdings is one of the principle investors in the entity, has just completed laying its own undersea fibre-optic cable connecting Barbados and St Lucia to international gateways in New York and Miami. The 940 kilometre, 20-gigabit undersea fibre-optic cable has reportedly almost 10-times the capacity of the Eastern Caribbean Fibre Cable, which, until now, was the main stay of the Barbados telecommunication link to the rest of the region since 1995.

The Barbados operation is the first step in TeleBarbados' planned Caribbean expansion, said Harvey.

"We want to rapidly expand in the Caribbean and specifically to St. Lucia. We have a cable that runs from our core backbone through St. Croix to Barbados that spurs off into St. Lucia and we hope to replicate a lot of the products and services we have here in St Lucia. Barbados is first; St. Lucia will be a quick second. Hopefully in the next month or two we will solidify plans for the rest of the Caribbean on what we will do there. Some islands we may partner with other people, some islands we may go directly, but we will solidify plans over the next couple of months," Harvey told clients, business partners, and other specially invited guests at the launch ceremony at the Country Club of the prestigious Sandy Lane Hotel in Barbados Wednesday night.

Jeff Storey, president of TeleBarbados' parent company Leucadia Telecommunications Group, later told the media the New York-based company thought the Caribbean was the "perfect" place to do business.

"It’s a great place to do business. There are a lot of companies that don’t want to do business in the region because it’s relatively small, well, that’s perfect for us. We believe that there’s a business opportunity here. There’s limited competition and the Caribbean region needs more competition. They need companies that will come in and invest and provide services. If we come and invest, and provide services, the islands will grow, and the businesses that are in those islands will grow, and there will be more customers to buy our services, so it’s a perfect type of environment for us," said Storey.

Among the company's offerings are International Private Leased Circuits (IPLCs), point-to-point private lines used by organisations to communicate between geographically dispersed offices throughout the world. An IPLC can be used for Internet access, business data exchange, voice, video conferencing, or any other form of telecommunication.

Another service is Dedicated International Access (DIA), a high speed connection to the Internet. TeleBarbados can provide IP addresses, manage router/firewalls or even host websites. The TeleBarbados Internet backbone is directly connected to thousands of the Internet's most visited websites. That means that clients' Internet raffic will not be slowed by congested "peering points".

Another product for business customers is high quality long distance voice using dedicated access lines (DALs) which can translate into cheaper long distance rates.

WiMAX, an acronym that stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, refers to broadband wireless networks that are based on the IEEE 802.16 standard, which ensures compatibility and interoperability between broadband wireless access equipment and specialising in point-to-multipoint broadband wireless access.