Digicel has certainly come a long way since it was an upstart operator entering the Jamaican market in 2001. Today it has around 70 per cent of the Jamaican market and offers a mix of telecoms, communications and entertainment services in 31 markets in the Caribbean, Central America and Asia Pacific. And a few days ago it was awarded a 15-year contract, worth an estimated tens of millions of euros, with the Caribbean nations of Saint Lucia, Grenada and Saint Vincent & the Grenadines.
The contract, to provide a major ICT managed services project, is linked with delivery of the Caribbean Regional Communications Infrastructure Programme (CARCIP), a project initiated by the World Bank and co-ordinated by the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU).
The development objective of the CARCIP is, as the World Bank puts it, “to increase access to regional broadband networks and advance the development of an Information Technology and Information Technology-Enabled Services (IT and ITES) industry in Nicaragua and the Caribbean region”.
Digicel, with technology partners Cisco and Fortinet, will deliver fibre optic network infrastructure so that all government buildings across the island nations will benefit from high-speed fibre connections.
