For the av­er­age con­sumer in T&T the cost for broad­band ser­vices is not pro­hib­i­tive, says Bri­an Collins, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Flow Trinidad.

Quot­ing a Caribbean Tele­com Union re­port on the af­ford­abil­i­ty of broad­band, he said: "T&T is in the top five of af­ford­abil­i­ty. They looked at the av­er­age earn­ings of some­body liv­ing in To­ba­go and the cost of a broad­band pack­age and we are con­sis­tent­ly at the very top.

"I don't think we should be look­ing at the cost, but af­ford­abil­i­ty. Is it af­ford­able to the vast ma­jor­i­ty of peo­ple and I will al­ways says the an­swer is yes. There will al­ways be a small mi­nor­i­ty of peo­ple that for what­ev­er the rea­sons don't be­lieve they need it or can't af­ford. I think what we should be do­ing with the min­is­ter is try to fig­ure out how we ad­dress that mar­ket seg­ment."

Collins' com­ments fol­lows calls by Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­is­ter Max­ie Cuffie for more af­ford­able broad­band ser­vices,

Not­ing that 29 per cent of T&T homes had broad­band ser­vice, Collins said telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­nies should get to­geth­er with the min­is­ter to look at dif­fer­ent op­tions.

"We are al­ways ready and will­ing to meet with Min­is­ter Cuffie. I think he is do­ing a good job and I think he can count on our sup­port. We have some ideas we will like to share with him," he said.

He added that back in 2005 when law­mak­ers moved to reg­u­late the mar­ket, on­ly eight per cent of house­holds in T&T had broad­band ser­vice.

"We have grown near­ly ten-fold with the mar­ket that we have and the speeds that we have.

"When I came in­to the mar­ket in 2010 the av­er­age speed was about two megabits. The av­er­age speed that we sell now is about 45 megabits, so we have ac­tu­al­ly in­creased the speed of the prod­uct 25 times with no price in­crease.

"I know the min­is­ter and every­one would like to see low­er prices and I would be more than hap­py to meet with him and make rec­om­men­da­tions on how he could help us re­duce our op­er­at­ing cost of do­ing busi­ness in T&T," Collins said.

"That might fa­cil­i­tate price re­duc­tions. But in more than ten years there have been no price in­creas­es. When you look at in­fla­tion run­ning be­tween three and right per cent, I think the in­dus­try has done a re­al­ly good job at of­fer­ing a high qual­i­ty prod­uct at com­pa­ra­ble speeds to Eu­rope and North Amer­i­ca at very af­ford­able prices."