Come now, Mr Dehring, you went to a good school. Are you trying to tell us that you believe that because a company rebrands, and changes its name (say, from C&W to LIME), that it is a wholly different company, not in any way to be identified with its former life, even if it has the same licences and premises?
C&W loves to operate under different names. It began in Jamaica as the West India and Panama Telegraph Company in 1868, and held a monopoly on external communications for a century. What is also hilarious is how C&W, now LIME, is loudly protesting that Digicel is now "exploiting their dominance to the detriment of consumers and competition". The history of C&W in the Caribbean shows that it is not against monopoly - as long as it is the one that has it.
It was after Independence that the Government of Jamaica (GoJ) bought the US-owned Jamaica Telephone Company (JTC) and a majority stake in the C&W-owned company which held the monopoly on external communications (which became Jamaica International Telecommunications Limited, JITL). Telecommunications of Jamaica Limited (TOJ) was incorporated in May 1987 after the merger of JTC and JITL.
25-year monopoly
In 1988, the GoJ gave TOJ (of which it owned 80 per cent) a 25-year monopoly over all aspects of the local wired telephone network. Other sublicences held by TOJ awarded it similar monopoly privileges in the areas of external telecommunications, wireless telephony and telegraphy. This government-to-government TOJ licence also granted the company an annual guaranteed return of between 17.5 and 20 per cent on revalued assets, with a provision that "the rate charged for telephone services shall be adjustable annually as necessary to provide the permitted rate of return" (TOJ All-Island Telephone Licence 1988, Section 27:1). In addition, the Public Utilities Commission, which had oversight telecoms services, was abolished. The 1988 TOJ licence vested sole regulatory control in the minister of public utilities.
Shortly afterwards (by 1989), C&W reacquired control of TOJ with a 79 per cent interest, including all these monopolies and the guaranteed rate of profit; C&W certainly showed no aversion to monopoly. I'm sure we all remember the hard time C&W gave InfoChannel when it began providing Internet services, and Digicel when it first entered the cellphone market, which is why LIME's protests now are so hilarious.
The government of the day failed to introduce the necessary regulatory systems appropriate to the new ownership regime, and C&W operated without any independent regulatory control to represent or protect the public interest. C&W did not then show any concern about its position being to the "detriment of consumers".
Sweet deal for C&W
After the change of government, in 1990, C&W demanded an upgrade of its monopoly licence "to take account of advances in technology". It wanted a monopoly on cellular telephony!
In response, on November 2, 1990, Prime Minister Michael Manley wrote to TOJ Chairman Mayer Matalon as follows: The Government undertook "to make the necessary amendment to the act and thereafter to make such amendment to the Telephone Licence as may be necessary to ensure that TOJ enjoys exclusive rights to provide public telecommunications services in, from and through Jamaica". What was important was not the best deal for Jamaicans, but the best deal for C&W. What has changed?
Monopolies and guaranteed rates of profit encourage ineffiencies. In 1993, Jamaica had about five telephones to every 100 persons; the long waiting list of applicants for telephone service (I was one) showed the bias of C&W mainly in favour of businesses and urban households; yet it wanted an extension to its monopoly!
Who can forget that great C&W moneymaking ploy of giving free message services to all subscribers, where instead of getting a busy signal (at no charge), you now went to voicemail (registering a completed call for which you had to pay)! This increased telephone bills dramatically - and the revenue of C&W!
The 2008 change of name to LIME cannot erase the memory of the sins of C&W. The parent company has not changed, nor the general policies and approaches. Nice try, Chris Dehring, but it doesn't wash.
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and environmentalist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.