Posted by Ingrid Riley on August 23rd, 2010
With this service, Digicel customers who choose either prepaid or postpaid packages can access super-fast Internet through a 4G modem to their computers or laptop. Customers can choose among the seven, 14 and 30-day plans, or a monthly postpaid plan. Customers who register for the 14 or 30-day plans will get double usage time up to September 30. The service is available across all parishes, covering 60 per cent of the population and 200 communities with further roll-out planned.
The opportunity exists because while up to 64 per cent of people have access to internet in Jamaica, only about four per cent of the population has access to the Internet in their homes or on the go because of the low penetration of broadband. 4G broadband will open up endless possibilities to these people, said Digicel CEO Mark Linehan at the launch of the new service held at the Spanish Court Hotel in Kingston. More particularly, it could increase the educational and employment opportunities for Jamaicans and improve GDP growth, thereby facilitating the development of a better economy. However, perhaps the most important component is its possible effect on businesses and productivity.
“The research has shown that for every 10 per cent increase in broadband, that increases GDP per capita by 0.9 per cent to 1.5 per cent,” said Linehan. “In time, the same way mobile phone penetration increased the efficiency and productivity of businesses and people, this will have a similar effect,” he told Sunday Finance. “If you look at the broadband penetration at the moment, there are businesses in Jamaica, across Jamaica that do not have access to the Internet and that’s slowing their potential down. But this will release their potential and open up huge opportunities to them,” he said. More
Popularity: 21% [?]
Posted by Ingrid Riley on June 18th, 2010
The Caribbean’s largest mobile telephone service provider Digicel put in a creditable performance for the financial year ended 31 March 2010 which saw the Group posting revenues of US$2.2 billion, representing a 12 per cent gain year-on- year and a compound annual growth rate of 24 per cent from 2007 to 2010 when all Digicel markets are included.
Notably Digicel was able to increase its subscriber base by 15 per cent to 10.8 million across 32 markets. More
Popularity: 20% [?]
Posted by Ingrid Riley on June 18th, 2010
Digicel launched a new online game – the Digicel BlackBerry Bonanza – for the over 184,000 fans on the Digicel Facebook fan page two weeks ago and to date it has had over 50,000 plays. The goal of the Flash based game that was developed by PanMedia- is to try to place ten BlackBerry smartphones in a holster in fifty seconds or less to qualify to move on to the next round. In round two, fans are faced with a maze of BlackBerry, Digicel, math and word-related multiple-choice questions. Players in the Digicel BlackBerry Bonanza have a chance to win daily and weekly prizes of Digicel call credits and BlackBerry® Bold™ 9700 smartphones. To date Digicel’s Facebook fan Page has over 180,000 Fans, the largest so far of any Caribbean Brand.
Popularity: 34% [?]
Posted by Ingrid Riley on June 3rd, 2010
IN A move that could pave the way for lower call rates locally, the Telecommunications Appeals Tribunal has dismissed an appeal from Mossel Jamaica Limited against a decision of the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR). In its decision, the OUR had sought to declare Mossel – trading as Digicel – and other mobile public voice carriers, dominant in call termination services.
The ruling opens the door for the OUR to determine whether telecommunications firms have impeded the maintenance or development of effective and fair com-petition in the market.The issue of high termination rate has been a long-standing concern within the sector, with LIME and Claro both accusing the Irish-owned Digicel of anti-competitive behaviour. More
Popularity: 14% [?]
Posted by Ingrid Riley on February 25th, 2010
U2 Connect Location still on Digicel's website
It was the second time I was hearing it in as many weeks. The first story came from a friend, the second from my 71 year old mother. A young lady called, introduced herself using what I will immediately assume was a fake name. Said she was calling on behalf of Digicel, please note my mother is a LIME customer and has been since it was called Jamaica Telephone company, well because she worked there for 30 years too. The young lady then went on to say that they are doing a survey and at the end they will get a SIM card with $5,000 worth of Digicel credit on it. My mother said, but I have no use for that as I am a LIME customer but my daughters have Digicel phones, so go ahead.
Popularity: 11% [?]
Posted by Ingrid Riley on February 1st, 2010
Jamaica’s not used to this style of advertising-Confrontational, use of a competitor’s colours and clear references. It’s more, well, American. In Jamaica we’ve grown used to the British, conservative, safe and frankly rather polite and boring way of advertising things. The market has now gotten a shake up as Claro the well heeled, mobile service provider newbie is doing things very differently.
Yes Digicel boasted that they had over 20,000 Facebook Fans in less than 2 months by doing what one of the things they do well, engaging their loyal consumers with credit giveaways and promotions. Claro’s presence on Facebook on the other hand, has been, well negligible. Somewhat expected I think, as Digicel is still number one in the marketplace, they still enjoy great affinity and Claro is still third in many people’s minds even as they announced they were now number 2. BUT and a big but here, is that Claro is positioning themselves as new and of greater value for money in an environment where many Jamaicans are counting their coins and being selective about where to spend them.
So Claro decides to grab their attention and enter the social media space differently.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Posted by Ingrid Riley on February 1st, 2010
Mobile messaging revenues worldwide are expected to grow to $233 billion in 2014, up from about $150 billion in 2009, according to a new forecast issued by Portio Research. Portio reports that global SMS traffic exceeded 5 trillion messages in 2009, a total expected to double by 2013–more than 4 billion subscribers have now embraced texting, the firm adds. In addition, MMS continues to grow, with full-year revenues for 2009 close to $27 billion worldwide (comparable to what SMS generated five years ago).
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Popularity: 1% [?]
Posted by Ingrid Riley on January 28th, 2010
A Mobile number portability (MNP) service enables mobile phone users to change their service providers without changing their original number. Its purpose is to foster consumer choice and effective competition by enabling subscribers to switch between providers without the costs and inconvenience of changing telephone number. It can also be applied to fixed lines.
Yet, it’s the one thing Claro really wants, second only to overtaking Digicel this year in the marketplace. Digicel on the other hand, says “that the costs of implementing number portability are not outweighed by the benefits, based upon its experience in other markets.” Claro wants it badly; Digicel says it’s too expensive. It is, perhaps, tempting to assume that a newer market entrant would be welcoming MNP much more enthusiastically, mindful of an improved opportunity to grab customers from established rivals. So it’s not surprising then that challenging operators would take the aggressive stance, whereas dominant operators are initially more reluctant to push MNP. Hmmm!
Popularity: 13% [?]
Posted by Ingrid Riley on January 12th, 2010
This was published in Chat, a weekly tabloid from the Jamaica Observer. Why it didn’t make the business pages in mainstream publications is beyond me. But then again we’re still waiting on mainstream journalists to really start using Twitter. 
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Popularity: 4% [?]
Posted by Ingrid Riley on January 12th, 2010
I attended the 8th annual Caribbean MBA Conference last week held at the Hilton Hotel in Kingston. At the luncheon the Ceo of Digicel Jamaica spoke and gave a great keynote speech and I gathered a bunch of stats.
Here are some of the more interesting numbers.
Popularity: 5% [?]
Posted by Ingrid Riley on October 26th, 2009
( JAMAICA) Digicel typically has many promotions and competitions to win things running at the same time. They usually promote it through the traditional media, on their website and also by sending a text message to you making you aware of the competition, if you are a prepaid customer when you check your credit status they tag it to the text message that comes back to you with the dollar value of credit left on your phone or if you call their customer service you hear the audio promotion before you are put through to an operator. They promote their stuff 360 degrees and hey that is why they are number uno in the Jamaican market- they are ubiquitous. More
Popularity: 1% [?]
