The re­gion's largest mo­bile provider is call­ing on reg­u­la­tors through­out the Caribbean to en­sure that there is "full dis­clo­sure and trans­paren­cy" in the ap­proval process of the pro­posed ac­qui­si­tion of Colum­bus In­ter­na­tion­al by Ca­ble & Wire­less Com­mu­ni­ca­tions for US$3.02 bil­lion.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions sub­mit­ted on Fri­day, Dig­i­cel said: "The first im­per­a­tive for the in­dus­try is full dis­clo­sure and trans­paren­cy around the pro­posed trans­ac­tion. We sim­ply must have this.

The de­tail of what is be­ing pro­posed in this an­nounced trans­ac­tion needs to be shared open­ly with the in­dus­try in Trinidad so that it is clear what the in­ten­tions of the merg­ing par­ties are and so that all stake­hold­ers (in­clud­ing Dig­i­cel) have a right to en­gage ful­ly in the ap­proval process and pro­vide their views as to what all of this means."

Dig­i­cel said that the deal can­not be ap­proved be­hind closed doors, ar­gu­ing: "In­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tice and in­deed com­mon sense dic­tates that a com­pre­hen­sive process is car­ried out to de­ter­mine the po­ten­tial ef­fects of this trans­ac­tion on the in­dus­try in Trinidad & To­ba­go.

"There needs to be a trans­par­ent pub­lic process where­by all stake­hold­ers have their say. This is the first im­per­a­tive. With­out this, the tele­coms in­dus­try in Trinidad & To­ba­go would be ex­posed to huge risks."

Specif­i­cal­ly with re­gard to the com­pet­i­tive en­vi­ron­ment in T&T, Dig­i­cel said: "As CWC (with its 49 per cent stake in TSTT) and Flow are each oth­er's main com­peti­tors for fixed tele­pho­ny and fixed broad­band in T&T, the merged com­pa­ny would hold a near mo­nop­oly po­si­tion for these ser­vices. The com­bined en­ti­ty may al­so en­joy sig­nif­i­cant in­fra­struc­tur­al ad­van­tages that could be dif­fi­cult for com­peti­tors to repli­cate in the short term and this could en­able it to raise prices."

The Irish-owned com­pa­ny did not spec­i­fy what it meant by "sig­nif­i­cant in­fra­struc­tur­al ad­van­tages."It said that there was much more in­volved in en­sur­ing vi­brant com­pe­ti­tion than the num­ber of play­ers in the mar­ket."The tele­coms in­dus­try is heav­i­ly reg­u­lat­ed the world over to pro­tect against the cre­ation of un­lev­el play­ing fields where­by key ad­van­tages are un­fair­ly gift­ed to one or more op­er­a­tors to the detri­ment of oth­ers. This is re­al­ly where the dan­ger in this pro­posed trans­ac­tion lies," ac­cord­ing to Dig­i­cel.

And it warned that un­less there was "vig­or­ous scruti­ny through a full trans­par­ent pub­lic process, the en­larged en­ti­ty will emerge with cer­tain unas­sail­able ad­van­tages cre­at­ed by the dis­tortive ef­fect on com­pe­ti­tion that this trans­ac­tion will un­doubt­ed­ly have. "Oth­er reg­u­la­to­ry ini­tia­tives may al­so need to be re­con­sid­ered in light of the changes to the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions in­dus­try now be­ing brought about."

The Kingston-based telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions provider said key is­sues such as spec­trum al­lo­ca­tions, mo­nop­o­lies in es­sen­tial fa­cil­i­ties, preda­to­ry pric­ing need to be pro­tect­ed against."It is far bet­ter and far more ef­fec­tive that ac­tion is tak­en now to en­sure that the best in­ter­ests of the in­dus­try gen­er­al­ly and ul­ti­mate­ly the con­sumer are ful­ly ad­dressed in the con­text of this ap­proval process than by leg­isla­tive ef­forts down the road," Dig­i­cel said.