LIME Rate Hearing Overdue

Reduce Telephone Rates
This is a call on the Political Directorate to do something about the telephone rates. It seems a serious contradiction that as we speak of economic recession and of reduction of prices to the consumer, one company is allowed to continue with not just high rates, but unreasonable rates to the consumer.

It is our contention that the existing rates for land lines is prevailing against Sections 10 - 14 of the Utilities Regulations Act. Nowhere has the Price Cap Mechanism replaced the legislation governing utility regulation in Barbados; in fact it falls within the scope of the legislation. BANGO in its submission to the FTC with respect to the Review of the Price Cap Mechanism urged the FTC to hold a hearing into the reasonableness of the rate hikes which the telephone company imposed on its customers over a three year period; 2005-2008.

According to the Utilities Regulations Act (URA), the company must show reasonable cause for increases of 71% when in 2005, the same FTC ruled that the company did not require an increase. How could things have changed so drastically? Why was a hearing not prescribed as the method of Review of the Price Cap although all the consumer advocates put up reasonable cases for a hearing? The FTC simply rejected the idea of a hearing and instead held a consultation, but the question remains, does the legislation give the FTC this kind of lattitude?

No! The legislation requires every price hike to be accompanied by a total scrutiny of the company and the company has to show reasonable cause for rate hikes URA Section 10; the burden of proof is on the company URA Section 14.

More important is the provision for review methods prescribed by the URA Section 15 which states as follows:

• 15 (4) In carrying out a review, the Commission shall hold a hearing in accordance with section 33 of the Fair Trading Commission Act.
• 15 (5) At a hearing referred to in subsection (4),
• 15 (5) (a) an interested party is entitled to appear in person or be represented by an attorney-at-law; and
• 15 (5) (b) a consumer is entitled to be represented by Public Counsel.
• 15 (6) For the purposes of this section “consumer” means a person using a utility service set out in the Schedule for domestic purposes

Whatever the FTC held in 2008 did not amount to a review if we are to follow the legislation quoted above. This company has shed more than half of its employees in Barbados; lowering its costs and reporting super profits. This is a cost which would have been considered in setting the rate, which would now be drastically reduced. If in 2005 a rate hike was not allowed because at the time, the company was earning profits in excess of the statutory 12% limit, it is unquestionable that right now they are further exceeding the statutory limit. The question is, how far past the Statutory Limit is reasonable, when in truth and in fact, the statutory limit is already reasonable?

There is no doubt in our minds that if Cable & Wireless came under the scrutiny of a hearing to Review its application of the Price Cap right now, Bajans could expect a drastic reduction in landline rates. So why is this not happening? This company which claims to love Barbados so much, has our land line rates up in the air; our cell phones rates up in the air; Internet rates up in the air; sending home workers; making super profits and providing a lousy service. When we take all of these factors together, a rate reduction is inevitable.

Three years ago, Barbadian householders were paying an average $28 for communications; basically a landline. The monthly bill to the average consumer of landline, cell phone and internet is now more than three times the total spend on telecommunications than in 2005. Many are in the range of five to ten times what they were spending in 2005.

Yes, it is one thing to say that Internet and cell phones were not so popular back then, the point is that for the consumer to be virtually laden with these costs for developmental technology in order to keep up and compete with the rest of the world, is very unreasonable considering that the company was making 14% in profit on the landlines alone and that the landline is the base or the carrier of these other services. Not only are these services a free ride on the landline, they are at a higher rate than the landline; producing a higher monthly bill to consumers than the landline would.

It is not only ridiculous but totally unreasonable for Barbadians to be saddled with such high telecommunications costs; from Price Cap to the interconnection agreements. This Government has spoken about the ill-effects of monopolies and against such monopolistic practices and we are calling upon the Prime Minster to act in the interests of people of this country and its development and carry out his promise to deal with monopolies by starting with a Review of C&W's application of the PCM, which has dealt a severe inflationary blow to many Barbadian consumers.

Cable & Wireless to be renamed LIME

Just a piece of news off the press. One must wonder about this name LIME (Landline, Internet, Mobile, Entertainment) which C&W wants to change to. Is that the extent of the seriousness they can bring to such an important tool? sounds like all are about entertainment because the only word there that is not a telecommunications service is "Entertainment". Furthermore, look at the acronym????

Don't get me wrong, entertainment is necessary but this is typical of a mentality foisted on us as a people. That is probably how one would market something like Disney World but not a serious telecommunications company.

Leaves one to wonder. Somebody either think we are ignorant or should remain ignorant. What an insult! It's still just about the money. By whatever means necessary. See story below and tell me what you think?

Date Posted: Sunday 21 September, 2008

Executives plan launch before Christmas

By Stanford Conway
Editor-in-Chief-SKNVibes.com

BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – TELECOMMUNICATIONS Giant Cable and Wireless (C&W) may soon change its brand to the acronym, LIME, which stands for Landline, Internet, Mobile, Entertainment, and should be introducing the new version before the Christmas Season.

According to The Jamaica Observer, C&W had announced that it would be selling off its international operations and a concerted effort is now being made to consolidate the companies’ businesses in the Caribbean.

The newspaper also stated that an internal memo from a C&W executive read: “We spent the day talking about the transformation of our business and the journey that we’ve embarked on to create a strong pan Caribbean business, which customers want to work with and colleagues are proud to work for. More specifically, we spent our time looking in some detail at the next phase of our journey. The phase where we create and introduce a new version of our brand, a fresh approach that signals to colleagues and customers that we’ve changed, that we’ve transformed and that we’re becoming the business they want us to be.

“We’ll be taking this new version of C&W out to market before Christmas. We are going to rename our business. We’re changing our name because the business we’re becoming bears little resemblance to the business we were because we want to show the world how much we’ve changed. Ladies and gentlemen start preparing because Cable & Wireless Caribbean is going to become LIME- Landline, Internet, Mobile, Entertainment. A new name that says what we do, which stands for something, which tells the Caribbean that we’re back and that we mean business.”

The Observer also indicated speculation is rife that América Móvil, which recently acquired MiPhone, would seek to establish a footprint across the region by snapping up C&W’s Caribbean operations.

América Móvil is the fifth largest mobile network operator and the largest corporation in Latin America. It is a Mexican publicly traded wireless communications company and provides services to over 152 million wireless subscribers in the Americas, primarily in Latin America, and the Caribbean as of March 2007 when it acquired 100 percent of Jamaican mobile operator Oceanic Digital, under the brand name MiPhone.

Digicel and Cable & Wireless

Date: Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 1:09 PM
Subject: Digicel and Cable & Wireless
To: Bdosconsumer@gmail.com

Digicel

I frequently make calls to Guyana from my Digicel prepaid cell phone. On one occasion while making such a call I noticed that the call timer of the cell phone was running while the cell connection was ringing but not answered. This obviously is not normal as the timer should only come on when the call has been answered by the receiving party, thus initiating charges. Since no one answered I hung up and checked my balance which should have been $10 dollars since I had just recharged the phone with the said amount. It was not $10 but $9.12. I made a mental note but did nothing.

However, I started noticing more and more that the same thing was happening so I decided to call Digicel customer care. I was told by a representative that Digicel was experiencing a problem with calls to Guyana and that she on behalf of Digicel was sorry and wanted to know if I wanted a refund. I said no and that all I wanted was for them to fix the problem because I have to make frequent calls to Guyana and I should not be charged for calls that were not connected. The customer representative assured me that they were actively working on the problem and hoped to get it resolved soon.

A week went by and the problem seemed to have been solved. Unfortunately it recommenced, so finally I decided I couldn't take it any more after realizing that I was losing about $20 a month in calls that were never connected. I called Digicel customer care and told the representative that I wanted a refund for the the last call I just made (I estimated the refund to be about 89cents). She told me that I was not going to get a refund because

1) Digicel was not the responsible carrier. It was the Guyanese company that was at fault.
2) I did not know the exact amount of money that was initially on the phone card before I made the call.

In response to this I said that:

1) Digicel was the responsible carrier since I was making the call through them and it was Digicel and not any company in Guyana that was deducting credit from me. They were the ones taking my money!
2) It seems illogical for someone to have to take the time to constantly check the balance of their phone before they initiate a call. How many people do you know that do that? Once you know that you have money on your phone you just dial.

My response fell on death ears and I got no refund....(remember I was asking for less than a dollar). Doesn't Digicel have the technology to see the last call that was made from a cell phone?

With the high Guyanese population in Barbados, the vast exchange between the two countries and the number of people that do not look to see if their money is being deducted for unanswered calls, one can safely estimate that Digicel is getting rich for not even providing a service. Alternatively, getting rich from providing a terrible service. Digicel must be getting rich by just silently nickel & diming persons. Especially Guyanese who might be illegal in Barbados and therefore will not complain.

Please make the general public aware of this.


Cable & Wireless

If you did not know, Cable & Wireless has been traffic shaping and throttling the internet to their customers disadvantage.

See the link below:

http://www.azureuswiki.com/index.php/Bad_ISPs#Barbados

There have been many times recently that I have been downloading legitimate files from the internet from sites like Rapidshare, when suddenly the download connection was severed due to Cable & Wireless over agressive traffic shaping and throttling policy. Thus wasting lots of my time as sometimes these files were transferring for over twenty five minutes.

Our North American neighbours have realised what some ISPs like Cable & Wireless have been doing and have taken successful action:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080711.wgtcomcast0711/BNStory/Technology/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20080711.wgtcomcast0711

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/1859/125/


Please help save the freedom of the Barbados internet or next we will find that blog sites like yours or the Barbados Underground or the Barbados Free Press are being cut off from the public by an ISP over stepping it's bounds!


Please reply and let me know what you think
A very concern bajan

CELL PHONE CHARGES AS PER BUDGET

I am concerned. Can someone please tell me how the $4.00 charge will be imposed. Are we as customers to depend on Cable and Wireless to tinker in some way with the minutes available?

I hope not and will be keeping an eagle eye out to hear. I became even more concerned when I read in today's paper the below comment from a Cable & Wireless official:

"In terms of pre-paid, our engineers will have to look at how we can make adjustments and programming on our pre-paid platforms and in terms of having settlements," she noted.

Do we as consumers comprehend this statement. Lets talk about it and work out the possible reactions we as consumers should make to such an event.

Roaming Charges

One of the key tools to enjoying the benefits of free trade is the ability to communicate in its many forms. It would seem to me that everything is being done to undermine any benefits that may accrue to us as part of the global village.

Although I was swept away when I found out that roaming is as much as $2.94 per minute, I was not surprised because it is true to form; a fleecing of the Caribbean people. Slavery ain't done! They make you sweat for it and then take it with ease, making super-profits.

This price is nearly six times the cost of an international call by card. Why? These carriers are terminating their calls on their own networks for which they already earn the profit at $0.60 per minute. Yet, in the USA, which can hold the Caribbean from end to end many times over, roaming is free. What does this say about how these providers see us? In return for consumer patronage, what are they giving to regional integration? I see, they are targeting the foolish ones who don't check their phone bills and even those who do check but are so affluent-minded that they pay nevertheless.

To tell the truth, guys, you affluent have a duty to those less fortunate to object to such high charges and to yourself that would allow you to save and have a bit more that allows you to give more to the poor. Have a heart, all we ask you to do is complain. Give back to the communities where you came from and left the most unfortunate.

Consumer Intervention

Fellow consumers and customers of Cable & Wireless, it feels good to be able to announce to you that, "WE WIN" for the second time, with the announcement that land lines will be frozen. However, the increase through the Price Cap back door gave C&W a fair bit of what it wanted. I think we pricked the conscience of the FTC because there were unconfirmed reports of a ding dong battle between C&W and FTC over Price Cap.

While it is good news that the domestic landline users will not experience an increase in their telephone bills, it is still a fact that the cost of telephone and communications in general, is high.

About 6 years ago, the average household budget for communications, namely landline was about thirty dollars. Between then and now the average household which uses all the telecommunications services at minimum is on average $160.00. This represents a 530% increase in your telecommunications bill.

In light of this, I would like you to consider the following:

1. The cost of the network is already absorbed by the domestic and business customers using landlines and out of this income C&W earns a reasonable rate of return or profit.
2. C&W is also using the network to sell internet which they get dog cheap and charges more than twice what they charge for the landline that is already paying for the network.
3. When you use a cell phone to call a landline on the network that is already paid for, you pay three times the amount for each call as you would pay for a phone booth which also accesses the same network. Why the difference in price?

These are the factors that allow C&W to earn super profits. Bleed the people of Barbados and then start crying about inflation, when in truth and in fact, this quest to earn super profits has contributed significantly to inflation.

If our communications bill had simply doubled to about $50 - $80 per month for everything inclusive of cell phones and internet, we could not complain too much, but think about the number of tins of milk, bread and cheese per month that the extra $80.00 could buy?
Think also of your gas bill (or even bus fare) and the fact that the extra $80 could have helped cushion the impact of the oil increases we are now experiencing.

When you are done, please answer the question, are you feeling the cost of communications in real dollars or missing dollars to fulfill some other important commitment because you had to pay a phone bill? If you did not have to pay that extra $80, wouldn't the commitments fulfill easier?

Even if it does not impact you, think of poorer families where children need the internet to gain the edge in the absence of having a library or other means of access to information and guidance. Also of the small business that could be more competitive if the cost of technology was not so high?

What is most damaging about this exercise is that the only perceived reason that prices could be so high is to deter competition and this is very insensitive to consumers who are being asked to pay to keep out competition.

Fellow consumers! That is madness! Why would we pay through our noses to keep out competition when competition is in our interests? One can only conclude that C&W has no sense of Corporate Social Responsibility.

Price Cap news

Well, the Fair Trading Commission has announced its decision on rates for the next few years.
The apparent good news is that for ordinary residential telephone users there will be no increases until December 31st, 2009. From January 1, 2010 to March 31st, 2012 the rate can only be increased to a maxium of 4.5 per cent.
Sounds like good news?
For those residential folk who make long distance calls from their homes there will be an initial 20 per cent reduction on our rates to be implemented on or before August 1st this year.
More good news?
I have started this discussion because one of the purposes of this blog is to educate people or at least provide them with contrasting arguments so they can have a look at the various sides and take a stand.
For example, I contend that the seven per cent cumulative inceases over the past three years were unjustifiable in the frst place. There was no clear explanation from the FTC how it arrived at this decision.
It seemed like a figure was pulled from a rabbit's hat.
If we argued that the rates were unjustified in the first place, then do we argue that they are ok until December next year?
Or is it just possible that we should be arguing that rather than a freeze those unjustifiable rates should have been in fact reduced for the same period ending December 31st next year.
Are we citizens entited to a recovery on unjustified increases over which we had no chocie?

Hallam

Cheaper long distance calls

You no longer have to pay more than a dollar for that overseas call to a friend in the U.S, Canada or the U.K.
Simply find an outlet for Blue Communications or Cable & Wireless and you can buy a card that allows you to make that call at 49 cents Barbados. The card can be used over a fixed line phone, namely the one in your home or at any other residence or business or at a pay phone.
It cannot be used via your cellular phone where that same call could cost up to $1.30.
Question?
If the monopoly an afford to offer 49 cents with a card from you home why can't they do the same without a card from your residence or business?
Based on information I have access to I believe these companies could easily be going to 35 cents.
What do you think?
Speak up, write your newspaper, call the call-in programmes, talk to your parliamentary representative and participate in this blog.

Hallam Hope