anthony.ritch@time4lime.com

Do you believe the Cayman Islands ranks among the leaders in the delivery of telecommunications services in the region? Why or why not?

The Cayman Islands is ranked as one of the best markets in the region in terms of being a leader in telecommunications services. Across the Caribbean, there are few countries that can compare in terms of infrastructure, products and services, the sophistication of the customer base, the level of competition and the regulatory regime.

When we look at the infrastructure for example, LIME has made a tremendous investment in the Cayman Islands over the last 40-plus years. All three Islands benefit from a strong, robust network today due to the investment made in our extensive copper and optical fibre networks. We rely heavily on our copper network to deliver the best Internet experience in the country in terms of performance, and our mobile network provides nation-wide coverage that allows families to connect and businesses to enjoy a tremendous amount of flexibility and productivity gains. We have undoubtedly built the country’s most resilient core networks investing in multiple fixed and mobile telephone exchanges and extensive data technologies.

The backbone of our network is among the best in the region and here in Cayman we have been laying optical fibre which also covers the Brac and Little Cayman as well since the late 80’s. We invested in two international fibre systems to ensure that Cayman has the ability to easily connect to the rest of the world, through Cayman Jamaica Fibre System going east and MAYA, which connects Cayman to North and South America. We are now poised to continue with our regional investment through a new East-West cable, which will give Cayman even greater capacity and resilience to the US and the wider Caribbean.

Our business services have evolved rapidly over the years whereby Cayman benefits today from some of the latest technology in terms of IP PBX systems, SIP trunking, MPLS, high-speed DIA services, and managed IT services. The level of investment in Cayman has been driven primarily by our business community, perhaps more specifically by the financial industry, which requires performance, sophistication and service levels that are on par with first world countries. We are clearly one of the best telecoms investment stories in the region.

What do you predict will be the next major advancement in the local telecommunications industry?

Undoubtedly the introduction of 3rd or 4th Generation wireless technologies will be the next big battleground for Cayman’s operators. Demand is being driven by customers seeking more bandwidth and greater performance than ever before and they clearly want to have speed in the palm of their hands that is on par with their connections at home or at their place of work. While we have 2.5G in Cayman today, customer demand is driving the investment case and while this will not necessarily revolutionise the mobile experience in Cayman, hopefully the innovation and utilisation will ensure Cayman stays at the forefront of the region while giving operators acceptable margins.

From a more customer-centric standpoint, I think the next major advancement in the local telecoms industry will be the introduction of local number portability. The ICTA has mandated that Cayman has to introduce fixed and mobile number portability by mid November and this will herald a new battle for market-share and offer fixed and mobile customers the ultimate flexibility in terms of their choice of carrier or operator.

This will drive a new level of business practices, policies, technologies, offers and most importantly customer experience. There will be a need for telecoms operators to consistently invest in the infrastructure, deliver cutting-edge services, deliver optimal packages, best value and best in class customer service in order to attract and maintain customers and market share. This is yet again another example of where the Cayman Islands is leading the Caribbean region; we’re the first and others are watching closely!

What legislative changes would you recommend that could enhance the delivery of information communications technology?

Cayman benefits from one of the best regulatory bodies in the region today and the laws are quite modern and comprehensive as well, taking quite a bit from North America and European experiences. One change that I would recommend at this stage would not necessarily be around the laws per se, but more around the regulatory classifications of services as it pertains to VOIP services.

VOIP technologies presents a real challenge today whereby global competition is clearly very prominent here in Cayman offering calls around the world for a few cents per minute, in some cases claiming unlimited calls to the US for example for $20 per year. LIME has to endure the highest level of regulation on this service locally and is simply unable to effectively compete with such offers yet. Our network is used as the backbone to provide these connections and the global VOIP operators do not have a license to operate in Cayman and pay no license fees to the Cayman Islands Government.

What plans over the next year will your company introduce to improve the delivery of your products and services to customers?

Over the next year LIME will be working quite hard to improve the delivery of products and services to customers. We continue to invest heavily in the region, billions have already been spent across the Caribbean in the 13 countries where we operate and we plan to invest another half a billion dollars over the next three to five years to upgrade our networks, investing in the latest fixed, mobile and data technologies. This investment will ensure that LIME has the most robust infrastructure across the region and remain the only true full service provider.

Our investment in our staff by way of recruitment and training will continue and other services such as our Contact Centre will be enhanced significantly. However, we still believe that building a customer-centric culture and re-shaping the organisation around our customers is one of the most significant investments we are making.

What impact has the economic slowdown had on your business?

The economic slowdown has definitely impacted our business, resulting in less consumer and business sales. However our decision to streamline our operations across the region from mid-2008 allowed us to be better prepared for the downturn in revenues. Consumers tend to spend less on telecoms services during economic downturns and of course businesses are clearly seeking ways to rationalise their spend and still maintain or enhance their level of productivity. Thankfully, LIME has been able to still deliver great products and services to our many customers; we continue to expand and deploy one of the best networks in the region and we have remained competitively priced despite a very different level of investment compared to other licensees in Cayman.

Are there any issues that you believe are preventing the telecommunications industry to advance to the next stage of its development?
Globally, I think two of the key issues that may be preventing the telecoms industry from advancing to the next level of development are privacy concerns and mobile data technologies.

Today there are many privacy advocacy groups around the world who are growing extremely concerned and raising a lot of fears about the capabilities of the many technologies we have today. These concerns relate to items such as data encryption, data protection, capabilities of telecoms providers or law enforcement to inspect such data, CCTV technologies, face-recognition technologies, how personal information is stored, how much is stored, where it is stored, mobile tracking capabilities, access to records and the list goes on. I think we are at the precipice of a global revolution whereby there will be connectivity between almost everything and everyone around you and the possibilities will be limited to our imagination and how much freedom we want and ultimately what price we might be willing to pay for it.

Secondly, the other real limitation facing us is related to the technology itself and more specifically to the wireless technologies. As our quest for higher connection speeds grows, so does our desire for mobile applications and we are now at a stage where mobile technologies are clearly pushing the boundaries of limited wireless spectrum and trying to deliver greater speeds to higher density areas than ever before. 3G and 4G technologies both make great claims in terms of mobile broadband capabilities however even in the US where billions have been spent deploying the latest networks there is an insatiable appetite that has simply driven even more innovation, greater demand, more congestion, more investment and the cycle continues.

We are at the point now where technological limitations are starting to affect the innovation and demand is outpacing the capabilities. Given the view of a totally switched-on world, further breakthroughs in wireless technologies will be required to keep pace with the level of innovation driving the global village today.

Does your firm support any educational programmes in the schools to encourage Caymanians to enter the telecommunications industry?
Today LIME supports Caymanians in schools by providing free internet access to most of the public and private schools in Cayman. We have a long and proud history of investing millions of dollars over the years training young Caymanians from basic technical courses, through advanced certifications, undergraduate and master’s programmes as well as allowing staff to do continuing studies such as legal and CPA certification courses. Some of my friends who are now with our competitors were actually trained by Cable & Wireless so the national contribution to education and other supporting fields has therefore been quite significant.

We also have staff that mentor kids today and each year we allow work-experience students to spend a few weeks with us where they can learn about the telecoms industry from some of what we believe are Cayman’s best and brightest minds. We sponsor numerous programmes such as The Passport to Success in partnership with Government. This is about giving young people a bridge between full time education and the workplace by teaching them the practical skills they need to secure a job. We also support the National Science Fair and provide various levels of support for education across the country that we hope will result in more qualified Caymanians joining the telecoms industry.

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