by Daniel Smith
The Trinidad and Tobago government’s initiative of introducting a regulatory authority to handle all telecom issues has resulted in the rapid increase of many communication resources to Trinidad and Tobago. There are more radio stations (36 to be exact), three mobile licences but only two providers (TSTT and Digicel), several cable licenses and several ISP’s.
I am much thankful for the new ISP and the reduction in cost. I remember up to less than 1 year ago having to pay 50USD for an unlimited dial-up account to connect to the Internet. This monopoly provided the dominant provider with the ability to terrorise their customers price wise. Then came a broadband solution which was never entirely rolled out country wide and thus had a large percentage of the market still having the dial- up only option.
Now there is fierce competion between the former monopoly and the newest broadband provider. The price has drastically dropped to 30USD for a 2mb connection. It is still being rolled out on a phased basis across the country, I dare say by both providers too slowly, and there are no definite timelines for final rollout. How long must some of us be subjected to dial-up in a broadband age.
However it’s beautiful to know the customer has viable and reasonable options that do not tie the customer into a long-term contract in some cases. Long live competition.
