Barbados Telecom Market: C&W and Digicel Competition Dynamics Revealed by FTC Assessment

Cable and Wireless (Barbados) Limited (C&W) and Digicel have been battling it out for market supremacy since Government liberalised the telecommunications market about 20 years ago.

A Fair Trading Commission (FTC) assessment of competition dynamics between the pair has concluded that C& W, which trades as Flow, will continue to be number one for the time being from the point of view of “total connections”.

The FTC also says that both telecommunications companies are facing increasing competition from over-the-top (OTT) service providers at the retail level. OTTs are communications services provided over the internet. WhatsApp – messaging and calls – is one of the major examples of this in the Barbados market.

While not providing statistics, the FTC offered an evaluation of the battle between Flow and Digicel in its consultation paper reviewing the price cap plan for C& W’s standalone fixed line service.

Liberalisation of Barbados’ telecommunications sector started in 2003 and Digicel entered the market a year later.

Potential constraint

The FTC paper said regarding competitive dynamics that “Digicel’s network presence and service offerings have increased the level of competition in the market for residential and business fixed telecommunications services and they represent a potential constraint on C& W’s pricing of regulated services”.

“Digicel’s network is now as extensive as that of C& W covering 100 per cent of habitable areas. However, Digicel’s market share of total connections remains below that of C& W and the Commission is of the view that this is unlikely to change significantly during the next few years.”