MiPhone getting set to rule the mobile phone roost

Tag : Cell Phone Conference Call

I had always known that we Jamaicans love to chat, not just loudlyin public places, but often and for lengthy periods on mobilephones. According to MiPhone's CEO, Alejandro Guiterrez, in Nicaragua forexample - where there is an 87 per cent mobile penetration rate -the average user talks for 55 minutes per month. In Jamaica, with90 per cent penetration rate, the average talk time is 1,200minutes per month!

I sat down with Mr Guiterrez last Monday in an interview and helaid out his company's plans for Jamaica. Quite apart from thespecifics of the roll-out dates for completion of all MiPhone cellsites, fancy phones and the much anticipated 'pricing war' whichJamaicans ought to expect, the most exciting aspect of MiPhone's'reintroduction' into the Jamaican mobile phone market is the factthat MiPhone/America Movil is owned by the Mexican, Carlos Slim, aman listed as richer than Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft.
 
The 2007 Annual Report of America Movil states in its introduction:"America Movil has swept Latin America, helping the regioneliminate the telecommunications gap it had with the more developedcountries, and levelling the ground for a more even competitionwith them. It has set the stage for a profound revolution in theway people in the region live and interact with each other and withthe rest of the world."
 
MiPhone, in its new and much improved dispensation, will not be anold company in a new wrapping based on the plans Guiterrez has forthe mobile phone market. When I pointed out to him that the phonesI saw displayed in a showcase were ugly and archaic-looking in theJamaican market, he pointed out that because the system had to berunning with the old CDMA phones, they could not afford to justlock it down before the new technology tripped in.