Digicel in battle royal with Cable and Wireless in St Lucia

DENIS O’BRIEN’S Caribbean telecommunications operations is in the wars with Cable and Wireless.

Utilising tactics worthy of Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary, O’Brien’s Bermuda registered Digicel took out full-page advertisements in the St Lucia press urging readers not to buy new phones until competition arrived on the scene. Digicel has accused Britain’s Cable and Wireless of stalling talks to set up interconnections in St Lucia’s newly-liberalised telecommunications sector. The two companies said that, although talks were nearly complete, they have not yet finalised an agreement on how to link the two phone companies’ networks directly.

Digicel accused Cable and Wireless of stalling talks and missing meetings to the point of “frustration,” the company’s St Lucia chief operations officer, Donal O’Shaughnessy, said.