And while the Cabinet collective takes over the juggling of those many balls of chance that once hovered exclusively over Ralph Fonseca's desk it also has political promises to keep like the one about competition in the telecom sector. Most of us forgot about that when Intelco went south on the road to insolvency but the owners of Speednet which is the family of the Deputy Prime Minister say that competition can be a reality. They today had a soft launch of their public relations and we were there to get the answers to the tough questions: most centrally, is this Speednet thing for real?
Jaime Briceno, Chairman Speednet
“We want to have everybody out there on the street who wants a phone to have a Speednet phone or a Smartphone as the marketing name that we are using. We will certainly focus on one thing and get it done well.”
A practical business ethos and its one Speednet Chairman Jaime Briceno elaborated on with his partners from Nortel and Executive Director Edwardo Santiago by his side. Smartphone is going to work on a system known as CDMA not the GSM network which is emerging as the global standard.
Edwardo Santiago, Executive Director Speednet
“CDMA technology in which we operate is going to provide better coverage, more features, and it’s going to be cheaper to operate and those savings are going to be passed on to the consumers.”
How many does Speednet expect to make that switch?
Edwardo Santiago, Executive Director Speednet
“Based on the penetration rates in other countries when there is competition…the problem is that when you don’t have competition the market place stagnates while when you have competition you stimulate the marketplace. So Belize easily can reach 100,000 subscribers. So if BTL has 60,000 subscribers there is room for at least 50,000 to 60,000 more subscribers in the marketplace, very easily achievable.”
Jules Vasquez,
Some people feel that the 55 cents a minute that BTL charges during peak is too much. What would you all be offering?
Edwardo Santiago, Executive Director Speednet
“Well we are not going to towards the specific entry rates because it’s kind of premature to do that because we are still 2 or 2 ½ months before we launch. We are going to be so much more prepared for the people that when they see our rates and also get the positive feedback that the system does work that they will not hesitate to use our service. We will be extremely competitive and the entrance to get into our network, the price of the handsets it’s going to be so competitive that it will not even be a problem.”
Jules Vasquez,
How will you all undersell BTL in terms of rates or will you at all undersell BTL?
Jaime Briceno, Chairman Speednet
“Yeah that’s a legitimate concern and you know I mean you can also look at it that way that if they want they can just take the losses indefinitely and then we just can’t compete. So certainly while price will be an important factor for us we intend to be competitive. We do not intend for that to be the defining piece of our competitive strategy.”
But we’ve heard all this before and when the pitchman is a slick talking Latin marketing type, shades of Juan Mackenzie seem to seep in.
Jules Vasquez,
What would you say to those wary members of the public who have been tricked once before?
Edwardo Santiago, Executive Director Speednet
“Yes people do have a reason to be wary. What I say to them is that we have waited all this time before going to the public and showing our services. We’ve been working on this for a year and a half and we have not said a single word until we were sure this thing was going to work.”
And to make sure it does, Speednet is thinking big but going small housing its main switch in BTL’s building, one of four agreements, including interconnection worked out before BTL was sold to Jeffrey Prosser.
Edwardo Santiago, Executive Director Speednet
“We have three agreements with BTL…I would say four agreements. One agreement is what we call the tower agreement in which we use tower space to put our base station. We have another agreement where we put our switch in the BTL facilities and they are located right next to each other. We have a transmission agreement in which we run transmission ions from all BTL sites. And lastly, we have an interconnection agreement which was signed February 6th. So yes we would never attempt to enter a marketplace without an interconnection agreement, it is fundamental to any telecom business.”
Jules Vasquez,
Informed sources out there say Michael Ashcroft is the money behind Speednet. How would you answer that?
Jaime Briceno, Chairman Speednet
“That is not the case. We’ve borrowed money yes from the Belize Bank but so has more than half of Belize. I think most people, the majority of people, borrow money from the bank. We have borrowed money from the Belize Bank. It’s been at commercial rates, we’ve had to put up everything as security that we have.”
Jules Vasquez,
However Michael Ashcroft was or his people at BTL were instrumental in making sure those agreements were signed in February before Jeff Prosser and ICC took over. Isn’t that an indication he’s actively involved in the corporate strategy of Speednet?
Jaime Briceno, Chairman Speednet
“No I think you have to be careful you don’t mix the two things. What we met with was the BTL management and those are the people we dealt with.”
Jules Vasquez,
Ashcroft controlled.
Jaime Briceno, Chairman Speednet
“That’s what you are saying. What we are saying is we met with the people from BTL, the management from BTL, and we hammered out a number of agreements and I think they are good commercial agreements. I think BTL stands to make money out of this as well. And I think to be honest with you Jules I think that BTL was coming to the point where they see that competition will be here regardless of what happens. If it is not Intelco, if it is not us, somebody sooner or later will want to come in and I think that they have come to the conclusion that its better to have somebody you can work with as opposed to having somebody who can just come in and just throw things in disarray.”
Jules Vasquez,
However it opens yourself for the criticism that if BTL sees you as the safe competition, and we know that Mr. Prosser has said he doesn’t believe in competition, but if BTL sees you as the safe competition and then if they see you as safe - then consumer can argue that if you are working with BTL you are not working with me from a very skeptical perspective. But the consumers have a right to be skeptical after the hoax that was Intelco. How do you convince that you are on his side even while you are in the bosom of BTL so to speak?
Jaime Briceno, Chairman Speednet
“Of course they will have that concern and their skepticism. I probably would have that same point view just looking from the outside without really knowing what’s going on. But competition is good for everyone and I’ll give a personal example, and I’m that sure BTL and ICC will come to the same conclusion if they haven’t come to that yet, perhaps they might have been some misunderstanding either on the question or on the answer of Mr. Prosser.”
No there’s no misunderstanding here’s what Prosser said making it clear that competition is not good for everyone.
Jeffrey Prosser,
[March 23rd 2004] "Well as you can imagine as you said I'm not sitting in the chair so it's tough for me to say I do believe this: clearly international rates have to come down but I don't believe competition gives long term results in lower rates--it certainly hasn't in the united states or anywhere else in the world. Competition has ultimately resulted in poorer service and in the end higher cost to the consumer."
Still, Briceno says Speednet is here to compete with BTL.
Jaime Briceno, Chairman Speednet
“We will be competition. We will be competition and we will be offering alternative services to the Belizean public.”
Speednet plans to launch services in December with a full rollout in the first quarter of 2005.