Competition in Barbados’ telecommunications market, especially from some of the world’s leading technology companies, has become a lot fiercer.
Word of this development comes from Desron Bynoe, Cable & Wireless (C&W) Communications’ vice president with responsibility for Barbados, leading the Flow, C&W Business and Flow Business brands here.
He says the unfortunate thing is that global giants like Meta, which owns Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, Starlink, and Amazon are piggy-backing on the infrastructure of domestic players like Flow.
“The telecom space in Barbados and in the region has gotten more competitive. Yesteryear, competition, as we would have thought about it, would have been us, and whomever else within that physical space,” he said.
“Competition now is not just about that physical space competition now is about the big tech companies, the WhatsApps, the Metas, the Starlinks, the Amazon, because we all compete, whether we like it or not.
“And the unfortunate thing is that they compete with us, but they do not contribute anything to the space because then you have them riding on the backs of our infrastructure as part and parcel of it.”
Bynoe added: “So it has gotten a lot fiercer, and we have had to be more innovative and creative in terms of how we position our products and services to our customers, and that’s one of the good things that competition brings too, it forces you to be creative
and innovative.
“And if done right, the customer is the one who often benefits, because it gives them the options to choose first and it also helps to keep things in balance in respect to affordability and the like.”
Bynoe said Flow there had to focus on becoming more innovative. The vice president said digital transformation was huge for Barbados, and assured Barbadians that the brands he led had the infrastructure “to support what’s required for the future, and we will continue to invest and make sure that Barbados stays cutting edge as it relates to the Caribbean region”.
“One of the biggest advancements that we have had is moving away from copper to fibre, because that has allowed us to do so much more than previously we would have been able to do. We have seen the advancement where now we have subsea cables that connect our islands versus yesteryear we had call earth stations,” he explained.
“That’s really how transmission was done back in the day via microwave technology. Now everything is interconnected at the speed of light, basically because that’s how fibre transmits information – via light.
“And we have seen the advancement moving away from dial-up internet, where you had to wait until no one was using the phone to now having speeds of a gig and above.
“We are now able to do a video call, which is something that was unheard of probably 15 years ago and all that is part and parcel of the technological advancement within the space to be able to continue to innovate, to stay cutting edge, to stay where we can ensure that our people have the best technologies that are available onto them.”
Bynoe also pointed to advancement in the data realm of things and a decline “in the more traditional telecoms where your fixed voice services are not as prevalent as before, because really and truly, you don’t have to sit at the phone to wait on the call”.
“Now, you take that call on the go, and you can take a call while sending an email from anywhere and connectivity is now no longer about residing at home and your broadband service at home,” he noted.
Bynoe said there were pros and cons to artificial intelligence (AI), but said it was here to stay and businesses should utilise the benefits it provided.
“We have already started using AI in many ways, whether it’s to analyse data, analyse usage patterns, to see how best we can position and make our value structure a lot better for our customers,” he said.
“We’re also utilising AI, even in some of our call centres, to help in terms of making sure that we do provide a true 24 by seven type offering to those who require it.”
The post Telecoms competition gets ‘fiercer’ appeared first on nationnews.com.
