Digicel

Digicel Group Limited
Type	Private - owned by Denis O'Brien
Industry	Mobile telecommunications
Founded	April 19, 2001
Headquarters	Kingston, Jamaica
Key people	Colm Delves (CEO); Denis O'Brien (Executive Chairman)
Products	Mobile networks, Telecom services, WiMAX Broadband, Etc.
Employees	~5,500 (2008)
Website	Digicel Group Ltd.; Digicel Pacific Ltd.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Digicel is a mobile phone network provider covering parts of Oceania, Central America, and the Caribbean regions. The company is owned by Irishman Denis O'Brien, is incorporated in Bermuda, and based in Jamaica. It provides mobile services in 26 countries and territories throughout the Caribbean and Central America with more than six million wireless users. Meanwhile its sister operation Digicel Pacific to date (June 2010) operates in seven markets in the South Pacific (Fiji, French Polynesia, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga, and Vanuatu).^[1] The company's largest competitor in the Caribbean region is LIME and Claro. In March 2011, Digicel sold its operations in Honduras and El Salvador to Mexican telecom giant America Movil, in turn America Movil sold all of its operations in Jamaica to Digicel. The latter actions strengthened America Movil's dominance of the Latin American market, while Digicel strengthened its hold on its domestic market.

[edit] History

Digicel, first established April, 2001 in Jamaica grew to 100,000 customers in approximately 100 days. In the ten years since the initial launch, Digicel's Jamaican customer base has grown to over two million users. In Haiti, where they launched operations in May 2006, the company now has 2.4 million customers making Haiti Digicel's largest customer base to date. Digicel is 100% owned by Irish entrepreneur Denis O'Brien. The company has a marketshare of over 70% in Jamaica.(Digicel makes cellphone connection in Jamaica)

[edit] Competitive Issues with Incumbents

The majority of Digicel networks start up in countries where the telecommunications market has been newly liberalised. As a result there have been numerous rows between Digicel executives and former state incumbent operators over interconnect agreements. This has led to Digicel taking some incumbent operators to court.^[2]^[3]

[edit] Digicel Expansion

In 2006, Digicel expanded into the South American mainland as well as the Pacific. On September 2006, Digicel acquired an unrelated mobile phone provider Digicel Holdings in El Salvador, rebranding it as El Nuevo Digicel. Digicel El Salvador has now overtaken Claro as number two operator in the country. In December 2007, Digicel won a highly competitive bid for a mobile license in Honduras and Digicel won a licence to operate in Panama in May 2008. Digicel launched in Honduras and the British Virgin Islands in November 2008 and in Panama in December 2008.

In 2007 Digicel also expanded their presence in South America and in the country of Guyana, acquiring U*Mobile, now rebranded as Digicel Guyana Ltd as well as launching in Suriname (December 2007) and French Guiana (June 2006). Digicel now operates in 32 markets across the Caribbean, Central America and Pacific.

[edit] Digicel Pacific

Digicel's sister operation in the Pacific Islands region currently operates in Samoa and in Papua New Guinea running at 900mhz GSM with GPRS & Edge data services and in PNG Digicel is now rolling out 3G UMTS/HSDA also data services, also via 900mhz), Vanuatu, Tonga, Fiji, Nauru as well as an experimental licence in the Solomon Islands and Tahiti.^[4] Digicel Fiji on 3 November 2010 changed its logo with a shade of blue in the last letters "cel". The blue colour represents the background colour of the Fiji flag and coincided with Digicel Fiji's new ad campaign slogan "Fiji Matters To Us".^[5]

Digicel Mobile Money launched in Fiji in July 2010 with subsequent deployments in Tonga (January 2011), Samoa (March 2011), Vanuatu (July 2011) and Nauru and Papua New Guinea in progress. In Vanuatu, similar to other countries, Digicel reduced the cost of mobile phone ownership dramatically making it available to a much larger number of the population. At launch the cost of a phone was 500 vatu compared to the over 1000 vatu for the incumbent operator Telecom Vanuatu Limited (TVL) with its Smile network.

In addition Digicel was the first to deploy mobile money services in these countries^[6] creating an ecosystem of agents that includes the main commercial banks ANZ Bank, BSP, Westpac, National Bank Vanuatu as well as key money movers such as PostFiji and VanuatuPost. The service has been supported by The Pacific Financial Inclusion Program, AusAid and GSM Association's Mobile Money for the Unbanked (MMU) initiative.^[7]

[edit] Digicel Caribbean

On Tuesday 8 February 2011, Digicel, has taken a controlling stake in Netxar Technologies, the leading systems integrator in the Caribbean region.^[8]

[edit] Partnership with Vodafone

On 6 February 2007, Digicel signed a three-year partnership agreement with Vodafone. Though both will remain separate and independent companies, the agreement, which includes Digicel's sister operation in Samoa, will result in the offering of new roaming capabilities. The two groups will also become preferred roaming partners of each other.^[9]^[10]

What is interesting to note, is that as well as being partners, Digicel and Vodafone are also rival operators in Fiji, where Digicel Fiji recently launched, and Vodafone owns a minority (49%) stake in Vodafone Fiji.

[edit] Digicel Foundation

Digicel and its shareholders set up the first of its foundations in Jamaica in 2004 - they have been actively involved in charitable work throughout the Caribbean funding projects in the area of Education, Sports & Culture, Environment and Special Needs as well as providing assistance after Hurricane Ivan devastated many of the islands, especially Grenada and the Cayman Islands.^{[citation needed]}

To date the Digicel Foundation in Jamaica has allocated US$13 million to sustainable development community projects in the country. The Jamaica Foundation has established a programme called the Enrichment Initiative, which aims to assist in achieving the Millennium Development Goal of 100% literacy by 2015. In partnership with the Ministry of Education, the Enrichment Initiative has become a key intervention of the Government of Jamaica in addressing literacy at the primary school level and involves using technology and innovative teaching methods to identify and then provide one-on-one attention to children who present a learning challenge in Grades 1-3. With Enrichment Centres and Mobile Enrichment Carts in over 50 primary schools across the country, the students have shown an average movement of two (2) grade levels per year. The Foundation was awarded the 2011 American Chamber of Commerce Award for Corporate Social Responsibility as a result of the work it has and continues to do in education.

Digicel has also established Foundations in two of its other markets - Haiti and Papua New Guinea. In Haiti the Digicel Foundation built 20 primary schools in its first year. Digicel promised $5 million Aid to Haiti after an earthquake struck Port-au-Prince on January 12, 2010. The company has been responsible for several major commitments to re-building Haiti, namely the complete restoration of the historic Iron Market and a commitment to build a new hotel to further encourage economic growth in the capital.

Digicel Foundation in Papua New Guinea is committed to community development through the sustainable building of Community Learning Centres (CLC) which provide education to children who would normally not have access to it by ensuring that there is proper infrastructure in place for the students to learn in a conducive environment. The PNG Foundation also provides mobile health clinics reaching the remote areas of the Highlands and has been instrumental in reducing the number of infant/mother related deaths in childbirth.

[edit] Caribbean and Central American Operations

The Caribbean and Central American operations of Digicel Group (December 2008).

**Digicel Caribbean & Central American Territories**
Territory	GSM & CDMA Frequencies		Local Sites
Anguilla	900/1900 MHz	1900 MHz (planned)	Digicel Anguilla
Antigua and Barbuda	850/900 MHz		Digicel Antigua & Barbuda
Aruba	900/1800 MHz	1900 MHz	Digicel Aruba
Barbados	900/1800/1900 MHz	1900 MHz	Digicel Barbados
Bermuda	1900 MHz	1900 MHz	Digicel Bermuda
Bonaire	900/1800 MHz	NO CDMA	Digicel Bonaire
Curaçao	900/1800/1900 MHz	1900 MHz (planned)	Digicel Curaçao
Dominica	900/1900 MHz	1900 MHz (planned)	Digicel Dominica
El Salvador	900 MHz	NO CDMA	Digicel El Salvador
French Guiana	900/1800 MHz	NO CDMA	Digicel French Windies & French Guiana
Grenada	900/1800/1900 MHz	1900 MHz (planned)	Digicel Grenada
Guadeloupe	900/1800 MHz	NO CDMA	Digicel French Windies & French Guiana
Guyana	900 MHz	NO CDMA	Digicel Guyana
Haiti	1800 MHz	NO CDMA	Digicel Haiti
Honduras (Launched November 2008)	1900 MHz	NO CDMA	Digicel Honduras
Cayman Islands	850/900/1800/1900 MHz	1900 MHz	Digicel Cayman Islands
Jamaica	900/1800/1900 MHz	1900 MHz	Digicel Jamaica
Martinique	900/1800 MHz	NO CDMA	Digicel French Windies & French Guiana
Panama (launched December 2008)	1900 MHz	NO CDMA	Digicel Panamá
Saint Kitts and Nevis	900/1800/1900 MHz	1900 MHz (planned)	Digicel Saint Kitts & Nevis
Saint Lucia	900/1800/1900 MHz	1900 MHz (planned)	Digicel St. Lucia
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	900/1800/1900 MHz	1900 MHz (planned)	Digicel Saint Vincent & the Grenadines
Suriname	900 MHz	NO CDMA	Digicel Suriname
Turks and Caicos Islands	900/1900 MHz	1900 MHz (planned)	Digicel Turks & Caicos
Trinidad and Tobago	850/1900 MHz	1900 MHz (planned)	Digicel Trinidad & Tobago