Caymanian
Compass - July 24, 2000
Internet users will save money with C&W
Port of Spain, Trinidad CANA - Businesses in 12 Caribbean territories which use the Internet heavily will reap major savings from next month when Cable & Wireless introduces its Internet Direct Connect plan, Trevor Clarke, the company's Executive Vice President for the Windward Islands announced Monday.
Internet Direct Connect is an Internet Service Provider affording access through either a digital private circuit connection around the clock or a managed Frame Relay route. Frame Relay is a high speed means of communication.
Clarke said the new pricing plan would take effect 1 August and would e available in Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Greneda, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Turks and Caicos Islands.
The Cable and Wireless executive said the company had engineered the service to meet the most demanding needs of e-business today.
"Cable & Wireless is preparing the way for e-commerce in the Caribbean," Clarke said at the start of a regional media conference here sponsored by Cable & Wireless.
He said some business customers would save up to 60% on their monthly charges abut another official said this figure could go as high as 70%.
Clark said most of the company's directly connected Internet customers were largely business customers who use the Internet to send large volumes of data and need to be on the Internet on a 24-hour basis.
He added that the plan was the latest in a series of reductions by the company, including a lowering of Internet dial-up rates in February of between 25 and 75%.
Internet Direct Connect was described by the Cable & Wireless Vice President as a "quality service for businesses that need to host their Web site or transfer large information files among employees or between customers".
The announcement was another response to customer needs and part and parcel of the company's strategy to increase its competitiveness and become the carrier of choice, Clarke told the journalists.
Several Caribbean governments are currently negotiating with Cable & Wireless to end its historic monopoly on long distance communications and in many cases domestic telephone service.
The annual meeting of journalists is designed to expand their awareness of developments in telecommunications and ongoing and upcoming plans by the company to expand and provide new services to the region.