by Marva Cossy
Barbadians may have to wait until next year for choice of carriers while making their long distance telephone calls.

Government had promised to liberalise that market earlier this year but that deadline was pushed to August 1.

Wednesday, Minister of Telecommunications Anthony Wood hinted at a further delay. Wood said a date for liberalising the long distance service would not be given until the conclusion of a request now before the Fair Trading Commission (FTC) which relates to new domestic telephone rates.

In the meantime, the entrant to the mobile telephone markets said they were faced with high expenses and unable to make potential savings which could be passed on to customers who make long distance calls.

Digicel’s chief executive officer Kevin White said his company was losing a substantial amount of money as a result of the delay. He declined to give a figure but pointed out that the company had built an earth station costing $3 million which was sitting idle.

One opinion is that, according to the Memorandum of Agreement (MOU) on telecommunications, signed by Government and monopoly holder, Cable & Wireless, the international market cannot be liberalised until cost-oriented prices are introduced locally.

This issue formed part of Cable & Wireless’ application for a rate adjustment, which was denied by the Fair Trading Commission (FTC) and is currently under review.

White acknowledged this opinion but said that his company’s local lawyers as well as those in Brussels examined the MOU and found nothing which should prevent the free-up of the international market.

With regards to cost-oriented pricing, he said Government had done all in its power to facilitate the issue by allowing the process to go to the FTC.

«Cable & Wireless is standing in the way because it is the only beneficiary in this situation,» he said.

The CEO noted that cellular companies now paid C&W a «ridiculous amount» of money to terminate overseas calls which was way above the price on the open market.

AT&T made a similar cry.

CEO Kim Whitehead said: «We have very high cost which has to be passed on to our customers.»

Currently, all carriers have use Cable & Wireless for international calls. This, Whitehead said meant they paid retail or corporate rates for long distance calls as well as interconnection fees on every single call.

«It is extremely costly and if you do some bench marking in countries that have liberalised long distance, the rates we are paying in Barbados are extremely high.»

«People in Barbados are paying double some of the islands which have liberalised,» Whitehead added.

According to her, AT&T has very competitive cost structures already negotiated to move long distance calls which would result in significant cost savings that could be passed on to the customers.

She encouraged Government to push ahead with the timetable for liberalisation.

The Minister said he too would have like the timetable for liberalising the local telecommunications market to be more advanced at this stage.

«We are trying to move the process quickly recognising that there are … obligations on the side of Cable & Wireless, on Government’s side and… also the involvement of the Fair Trading Commission (FTC) in determining some matters.»

Noting that prior to liberalisation, Cable & Wireless was the only provider, Wood said there was a view that Cable & Wireless allowed for cross subsidisation in its pricing with the international service subsiding the domestic.

He added that the international accepted policy was that pricing should reflect the market’s characteristics and the charge for a service relate to the cost of providing that service.