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VoIP (Voice over Internet
Protocol) (Oct 2006)
FYI, Television 7 is sorta the opposition station, altho Chan
5 is pretty aggressive in its reporting. This will give you some idea of
the problems that Telecom Freedom has in Belize.
+++
www.7newsbelize.com
UDP: Fonseca Gave BTL Assurance About Ban on VoIP
Has government made another secret telecom agreement that will mean more expensive phone calls for you? The first secret agreement, seven of them actually, were contained in a letter that the Prime Minister wrote to then majority shareholder Jeffrey Prosser in February of 2004 when he agreed to illegalize voice over the internet calls. Well it seems that government has made similar promises to Michael Ashcroft's companies when they replaced Prosser as majority shareholders.
The UDP today released a September 18th letter from BTL managing director Dean Boyce to Utilities Minister Ralph Fonseca and the PUC Chairman Roberto Young. It says basically that the voice over internet guidelines which were finalized in June, after many months of debate and a massive public forum, are just words on a paper, because government will not, in fact, can not implement them.
Boyce's letter says, "BTL has received assurances from the Minister that the guidelines are not...enforceable obligations, and that the PUC will take no steps to enforce or implement their contents, in any way." And while a ministerial assurance is one thing, a government undertaking is another, and that's just what Boyce says he's got in the next paragraph. It says, "BTL has been given an undertaking that no class license holder will be able to use, or permit use of voice over internet for any telecommunications traffic originating or terminating within Belize." Boyce's letter closes by saying that BTL will continue to operate on the bases of those assurances.
We were unable to reach PUC Chairman Roberto Young or Utilities Minister Ralph Fonseca for comment.
In a release attached to the letter, the UDP says it is a betrayal and that the "the public would continue to be shafted and BTL's blocking of VoIP would continue to be maintained." The UDP statement demands that the Prime Minister make a statement on it.
VoIP Ban Will Hurt Clear Contact Ltd.
And while that's the politics side of it, how does this affect you? Well, first let's recall the gist of the PUC ruling on voice over internet: it basically said that vastly cheaper VoIP phone calls and service were legal, but they had to originate in Belize from a Belize-issued phone number - unlike Vonage which assigns a U.S. number. That gave the room for a number of companies to startup on the central understanding that they could use VoIP within these guidelines to offer phone service in Belize. But now, if Boyce is right and those guidelines were just talk, those companies and their cheaper phone calls fantasies just walked out the door.
One of those companies is Clear Contact. The group, a consortium of cable and related interests, including Channel 7's parent company, Tropical Vision, banded together and paid the PUC $50,000 for what's called a class license - which authorizes them to move voice transmission - as data throughout Belize - which would mean cheaper calls for you and direct competition for BTL. Today Chairman of Clear Contact Evan Tench commented on the meaning of Boyce's letter for his company and the telecom landscape in general.
Evan Tench, Chairman - Clear Contact
"Clear Contact's business was based on the guidelines provided by the PUC issued in June of this year."
Keith Swift,
What would a ban mean for customers?
Evan Tench,
"Our plan was to get internet bandwidth from ARCOS and distribute it to customers at a higher speed and cheaper rate and the bandwidth would be clear so we could offer more enchanced services including voice over internet."
Keith Swift,
Based on the letter from Mr. Boyce, that can't happen. Is that what is saying?
Evan Tench,
"From what I am seeing, it is saying that we won't be able to offer voice over IP."
Keith Swift,
You guys set up this company and paid the registration fee based on the PUC's ruling so you guys used that as a guideline and now it is through the window.
Evan Tench,
"Yeah we paid $50,000 for a license, that is valid for 15 years, and according to the guidelines it should have allowed us to voice, video, and data."
And while Clear Contact is on the frontline, so is the PUC which invited New World Technology to Belize to explore its options in a liberalized telecom environment. New World is the company that owns the fiber optic loop that runs throughout the region.
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