CAS­TRIES, St Lu­cia–Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion min­is­ters from the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of East­ern Caribbean States (OECS) say the pro­posed ac­qui­si­tion by British telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­ny, Ca­ble and Wire­less (CWC) of Colum­bus Com­mu­ni­ca­tions In­ter­na­tion­al, would re­sult in the for­ma­tion of a mo­nop­oly in the sub-re­gion.The min­is­ters met in Saint Lu­cia on Thurs­day to dis­cuss the fall­out of the pro­posed deal.

Ac­cord­ing to the host, Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­is­ter Dr James Fletch­er, the meet­ing agreed that the merg­er would cre­ate a mo­nop­oly in the pro­vi­sion of fixed net­work ser­vices.

"We have agreed to join with the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion Au­thor­i­ty of T&T in the con­duct of an analy­sis to see how this im­pact on our re­gion and how we can en­sure the rights of our con­sumers are safe­guard­ed, that prices do not go up, that ac­cess to ser­vices that are af­fect­ed pri­mar­i­ly by this merg­er–which is fixed broad­band, sub­scriber ca­ble tele­vi­sion and fixed tele­pho­ny–that t�hose prices don't go up."

He said the min­is­ters al­so felt that the choic­es avail­able to con­sumers are not erod­ed "and that there is a con­tin­u­a­tion of fair play in the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion sec­tor."Last month, the East­ern Caribbean Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Au­thor­i­ty (Ectel) warned that both CWC and Colum­bus Com­mu­ni­ca­tions could be in breach of their li­cens­es if they en­gage in ac­tiv­i­ties, which can un­fair­ly pre­vent, re­strict, or dis­tort com­pe­ti­tion.

It said that in re­view­ing the pre­lim­i­nary in­for­ma­tion avail­able on the planned pur­chase, un­der the cur­rent reg­u­la­to­ry regime, telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions li­cense hold­ers in­clud­ing CWC and Colum­bus may be in breach of their li­cens­es.

"The de­ci­sion to com­bine busi­ness by the two com­pa­nies can have a neg­a­tive im­pact on the tele­coms sec­tor and this has pro­vid­ed fur­ther im­pe­tus for the re­vi­sion of ex­ist­ing leg­is­la­tion and rules gov­ern­ing com­pe­ti­tion in the sec­tor, in­clud­ing the pro­posed new Elec­tron­ic Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Bill," the Ectel state­ment read in part.

Grena­da's Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­is­ter Gre­go­ry Bowen said Ectel has been in­formed of the pro­posed merg­er, but warns that if the deal goes through the two en­ti­ties would need to ap­ply for new li­cences to op­er­ate in the sub-re­gion."None of these in the pro­posed merg­er has ap­plied to any of the gov­ern­ments of the Ectel states for a li­cence to op­er­ate in the merged en­vi­ron­ment," said Bowen, who is al­so Ectel's chair­man.

"Al­though the li­cence they op­er­ate un­der pro­vides that any­time you merge in a man­ner that will re­duce com­pe­ti­tion you should ap­ply."And so with all the state­ments made and the an­nounce­ment made through­out the world, an ap­pli­ca­tion has not been made," he added.

(CMC)