( L - R ) Andrew Pairman, John Eitel - Winston Sill / Freelance Photographer

Andrew Pairman's Anbell Telecommunications Limited has reached an agreement to absorb the customers of rival Internet phone company, Call the Planet (CTP), but the deal does not include the acquisition of CTP's physical assets.

"Under this arrangement CTP customers can migrate their accounts to Anbell at no charge," Pairman told the Financial Gleaner. "This process may involve new hardware at the customers' premises."

"Some of CTP's clients, especially those that were on the Netstream Global platform, are compatible," Pairman added. "Anbell will provide new devices to users with CTP-specific hardware and will assign new phone numbers."

The Financial Gleaner reported last month that CTP's Canadian owners had put the firm on the auction blocks having, they said, lost a significant amount of money in the collapse of the US investment bank, Lehman Brothers.

CTP's lead investor and CEO, John Eitel, said the company had ploughed an estimated US$5 million into its Jamaica operations and a total US$12 million in its international business, including in Canada, the United States, Barbados and the Bahamas.

Both Pairman and Eitel declined to say how much Anbell is paying for access to CTP's over 1,000 voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) customers - a move that will widen Anbell's growing customer base, which it has recently been expanding through acquisition.

For instance, Anbell previously acquired the customer base of Televoice Communications Ltd.

Transfer of customers

The transfer of CTP's customers to the Anbell platform began more than a week ago.

"We are attempting to contact as many of these customers and arrange installations before the existing CTP network closes at the end of April," Anbell's general manager, Sandra Bodden-Reid said this week. "However, we also allow customers the option of self-installation, to expedite the migration process."

Eitel's decision to migrate CTP's customers to Anbell suggests that he and his partners were unsuccessful in offloading their firm as a full service provider to a Barbados-based group, which was said to have been interested in its acquisition as a going concern, including utilising CTP's technical hub in Las Vegas, Nevada in the USA.

A value-added appendage

CTP's Jamaica business strategy revolved around signing up local cable television operators to retail the service as a value-added appendage to their cable offering, utilising their wired network to connect households for around US $25 per month. CTP subscribers around the world talk to each other for free.

Despite early interest among local cable operators, only the Kingston-based Telstar effectively partnered with CTP to grow its subscriber base.

Anbell's VOIP service was rebranded a year ago under trade name, ePhone, highlighting what the company claimed to be its system's, "ease of use, extensive world reach and an ultra economical way to connect with business associates, friends and family overseas". It recently launched two new VOIP ePhone calling plans to India and China. The plans are being marketed as the cheapest available.

Expecting 80 per cent success

The company said it was too early to say if there would be any fall-off in CTP subscriber base from the business transfer.

"We are expecting to achieve at least an 80 per cent success rate with the transfers to our system. It is important to note that Anbell will be able to offer to CTP customers a wider range of packages, more payment options and locations," Bodden-Reid said.

Anbell said it has beefed up staff in its call centre as well as technical personnel to handle the increased number of customer contacts, particularly during the migration phase.

"We have made arrangements to have sufficient stock on hand of the hardware device required to facilitate the transfer of the clients as well as to accommodate new Anbell customers. We are also in the process of implementing e-commerce facilities to better serve our entire customer base," according to Anbell's Pairman.

In March last year, Anbell announced it was entering into partnership with Net2Phone, a worldwide provider of voice services and technologies and the carrier for most of the Internet-based calling services offered in Jamaica.

That partnership, Anbell said, would have facilitated a seamless changeover and allowed Internet telephony customers to retain their existing US numbers.

huntley.medley@gleanerjm.com