Having conquered the Caribbean, Irish billionaire Denis O’Brien is planning to emulate this success in the South Pacific.
Digicel is currently working with South Pacific affiliates and has deployed operations in Samoa, with upcoming locations such as Papua New Guinea and Fiji.
To power its rollout in the South Pacific, Digicel has struck a deal with billing technology firm Intec to deploy the company’s Interconnect v7.1 technology amongst affiliates and subsidiaries in the region.
The Intec Interconnect technology is geared to handle traditional and next generation products and services in a single system and can handle inter-partner settlement of IP services over next generation networks. Envisaged services include voice-over IP, content downloads and multimedia messaging.
“We selected Intec’s Interconnect v7.1 because of its position as the global market leader and because we have established such a strong relationship with the company in our core Caribbean operations,” said Digicel Pacific’s IT director Eugene O’Shaughnessy.
It is clear that O’Brien is aiming to emulate his success in the Caribbean with a similar attack on the South Pacific mobile market.
Digicel Group’s subscriber growth in the Caribbean over the 12 months to 31 March 2007 was 144pc and the company now has 4.7 million customers across 22 markets.
The company achieved 50pc growth in 12 markets – including Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados, the Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Veincent & the Grenadines, Turks & Caicos as well as Trinidad & Tobago.
“Digicel will be bringing its proven business model for leading-edge cellular operations to the Pacific islands, and we look forward to helping it build a similar subscriber footprint and reputation for service quality in this market,” said Norm Halvorson, vice president of Intec Asia Pacific.
By John Kennedy
