Anthropology 2284F/G Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Digicel, Internet Service Provider, Digital Divide
23 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
introduction :
- Digital divide is the difference of technology between the rich and the poor.
- Expansive realisation is the pent up frustration determining the way new technology
is first seen.
Infrastructure
- Companies are “characters”
- In 10 years, Orange Valley went from the absence of phones to comprehensive
access.
- Cable and Wireless (c&w) was the first modern telecommunication device in
Jamaica. It is the largest ISP (internet service provider)
- In 1987, the Jamaican government transferred its moribund (dying) domestic telecom
provision to c&w but this guaranteed c&w after profit return on equity and exclusivity
for 25 years, but many were upset because they felt excluded from this “market” . this
caused to find a more genuine liberization.
- The contract was renegotiated but there were still arguments.
- The office of utilities regulation (OUR) became a key player.
- C&W has been seen as taking Caribbean countries “to the cleaners”
- To ensure fairness, OUR and telecommunication companies must ensure that they
recieve a reasonable return on costs and investments but not in a way that prevents
competition, but one could calculate costs in many different ways and also depending
on what is an externality.
Digicel
- Created a high quality GSM (global system for mobile) roaming service.
- c&w were obstructive as possible because no one could operate without linking their
fixed line system, so that is why digicel created 120 towers, 40 dealers and 12 stores
in a quick amount of time.
- Digicel “jamaicanized” the way the presented their company by introducing more
hierarchal system that jamaicans were used to so they hired jamaican managers that
had experience working in the USA who could meditate between modernist
sensibility and traditional management
- The other side of the process was to adapt to “irish digicel” who hoped to escape
from the colonial connotations of the british and to be seen
as jamaican.
- One of digicels most effective weapons was its pricing structure because it billed
people by the second rather than the minute.
- A big concern in 2004 was that digicel was becoming a monopoly ( one company
controlling a market) but a more plausible claim is that it was becoming a duopoly.
- Digicel became so successful as well because it targeted rural areas like orange
valley and marshfield.
- Call me
text was a launch digicel did that allowed users without credit to try and find
users with credit to bear the cost of their call which dominated almost all texting in
jamaica.
- First there is god, then digicel
is how the people of orange valley viewed the
company.
Other players
Document Summary
Digital divide is the difference of technology between the rich and the poor. Expansive realisation is the pent up frustration determining the way new technology is first seen. In 10 years, orange valley went from the absence of phones to comprehensive access. Cable and wireless (c&w) was the first modern telecommunication device in. It is the largest isp (internet service provider) The contract was renegotiated but there were still arguments. The office of utilities regulation (our) became a key player. C&w has been seen as taking caribbean countries to the cleaners . The other side of the process was to adapt to irish digicel who hoped to escape from the colonial connotations of the british and to be seen as jamaican. people by the second rather than the minute. One of digicels most effective weapons was its pricing structure because it billed.
