Ross Sheil, Staff Reporter

Telstar Cable Ltd. managing director, Florence Darby. Telstar is one of eight cable companies that will partner with CTP to offer telephone services.

Call the Planet (CTP), a voice-over Internet protocol (VoIP) currently available in 100 countries, is making another try at grabbing market share in Jamaica by partnering with cable providers to offer telephone service.

Its previous foray was in fixed-line services, a market which Cable and Wireless Jamaica dominates.

CTP customers will be able to call each other for free, whether they are in Jamaica or overseas. Other calls will be charged at discounted rates.

The service will be available from cable operators starting Monday. Customers will make their calls from a conventional telephone routed via a box connected to the cable service, while Flow will provide the Internet bandwidth to carry the calls.

No cost per minute

"We believe that the telephony industry will eventually be no cost per minute for calling anywhere in the world. It will only be a price to to access the Internet and this is where I believe all 'legacy' companies will end up," John Eitel, CTP President and chief executive officer told Sunday Business.

VoIP offers greatest potential for savings forboth multinational companies and families with relatives abroad, said Mr. Eitel. He cited the example of one company with branches in 15 countries which was able to eradicate its annual inter-office calls costs of US$150,000 by using the CTP service.

Cable & Wireless Jamaica, the oldest telecoms operation here, currently offers its own VoIP service called Netspeak. Priced at US$24.99 per month, CTP will be undercutting the basic Netspeak package by US$5.

Mr. Eitel said that his company was signing agreements with eight cable companies to market and deliver the service. This is an enviable record compared to Flow whose 'Watch, Talk, Click' triple-play offering has been premised on buying existing cable companies but has so far managed to buy two cable companies, Sauce Communications Network and D&L Cable Company, while most have resisted and some, such as, Logic One have begun offering their own Internet services.

CTP boasts that by partnering with cable companies it is instantly able to deliver services to cable customers islandwide. CTP's local consultant Roy Miller said that the partnership would turn the cable companies into "utilities" able to offer a wider range of services.

"This is an excellent product," said Flo Darby, managing director of Telstar Cable Ltd., one of the eight partnering cable companies.

"By the end of the month, we will be offering more services that we are testing right now and a third package that I can't tell you about right now, because it is not fully packaged enough but it will launch on February 24," said Mrs. Darby.

Failed before in Jamaica

CTP's previous attempt to launch here in 2004 aiming "to capture the bulk of the Jamaican fixed-line telecom market in a matter of months" failed. This, said Mr. Eitel, was due to the inability to find the right partners and a lack of appropriate technological infrastructure.

But, he contends, the country is now ready, acknowledging that "Jamaicans just love to talk."

"IP (Internet provider) technology is just now coming of age and because Jamaica has an open market and invites competition, it's the perfect place for us to advance our technology and our reach," said Mr. Eitel.

ross.sheil@gleanerjm.com