“Jamaicans will enjoy a coverage never seen before
as we will employ the latest long-term evolution (LTE) 4G technology to focus
on moving data”
Caricel’s
unofficial spokesman, explaining to the Jamaica Gleaner what Caricel plans to launching
by August 2016.
Looks like 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) will be
coming in August 2016. More interestingly, it will not be launched by Telecom
Providers Digicel or FLOW Jamaica.
Instead, Symbiote Investments Limited, using the
brand name Caricel, may be launching 4G LTE by August 2016 as reported in the
article “Caricel
— first Jamaican company to get mobile spectrum licence”, published Sunday,
May 22, 2016 by Balford Henry, The
Jamaica Observer.
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Minister of Science, Energy and Technology, Dr
Andrew Wheatley was quite pleased while he announced the coming of Caricel on
Monday May 16th 2016, as it would bring much needed competition to
Jamaica, quote: “In light of the merger between Cable and Wireless and Columbus
Communications, and soon Liberty Global, I take the opportunity to once again
welcome tripartite competition to the mobile telecoms sector, as the increased
choice will empower the consumer and force greater innovation from the sector”.
Symbiote Investments Limited is in the process of
procuring US$20,833,332 (JA$2.6 billion) for two (2) licenses, a Carrier License
and a Service Provider License they've been testing out since 2014 as reported
in my blog
article entitled “How
JA$6.2 billion Symbiote Investments Limited Spectrum may be Chinese-Jamaican
Telecom Provider”.
Already, FLOW Jamaica, who have now reached the
1,000,000 mark, has also dropped their latest FAM (Free Anywhere Minutes) that
makes it possible for you to make local calls as well as international calls to
USA, Canada and UK for 99 cents as detailed in my Geezam
blog article entitled “How Flow Jamaica
celebrated 1 million customers with a 99 cents FAM Plan”.
Coincidentally, Digicel and Huawei have begun
testing a super fast fiber optic technology known as XG-PON (10Gbps Passive
Optical Network), which has maximum theoretical speeds of 10 Gbps as reported
in the article “Digicel
And Huawei Technologies Successfully Test 10 Gbps Broadband In Jamaica”,
published May 20, 2016 by Digicel Group, PRNewswire.
A potential upgrade to their FTTH Network to which
FLOW Jamaica needs to match in terms of an Upgrade as described in my blog article
entitled “Why
FLOW Jamaica's 4G LTE Upgrade to counter Digicel Play needs islandwide LTE,
VDSL and DOCSIS 3.1”, the test conducted in Digicel's lab in downtown
Kingston may herald speeds matching
those of Korea and Singapore.
Albeit possibly mere coincidence, the coincidence is
still ominous; FLOW Jamaica and Digicel Jamaica are both firing warning shots in
preparation for anything from
So how far advanced is Caricel that they can launch
in weeks, possibly by August 2016?
Caricel
to launch in August 2016 - Slow rollout in Portmore and Kingston and St. Andrew
Meanwhile I've not seen or heard of much significant
tower construction activity in Portmore and Kingston and St. Andrew.
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Despite this, the un-official spokesperson who spoke
to the Jamaica Gleaner, not only revealed that they're launching 4G LTE as
reported in the article “Three-Way
Cell War ...As New Phone Company Vows To Fight Flow And Digicel With Price And
Service Quality”, Published Sunday May 22, 2016 by Arthur Hall, The Jamaica Gleaner, he also dropped
more interesting stuff about the Network.
The Caricel spokespersons claims that they'll
initially be rolling out a 4G LTE Network in Portmore and Kingston and St.
Andrew in the next three (3) years, quote: “We are ready to roll out and have
conducted our tests. We have already invested US$50 million and expect to
invest another US$50 million over the next three years while providing hundreds
of jobs and business opportunities for Jamaicans”.
Good to note that at a total of US$100 million, this
must be a very small Network and indicates a very slow rollout. Then again, to
go islandwide would require at least US$500 million, which Symbiote Investments
Limited probably doesn’t have at this moment.
However, their principal investors appear to be
Jamaicans living in the diaspora, so securing additional VC (Venture Capital)
funding may not be an issue for them, to quote the spokesman: “We have persons
here and overseas who have already expressed an interest in investing in the
company and the local financial institutions have been very helpful”.
This would
make them quite capable of paying for their Carrier License and a Service
Provider License for such a small 4G LTE Network, which may just simply be a
sandbox to test out the technology, according to quote the spokesperson: “We
have agreed a payment plan with the Government and as soon as we get the
official letter confirming that we have been granted a licence we will make the
initial deposit of US$4 million within the 30 days allowed”.
So who are these mysterious investors?
Chinese
Investors in Caricel – 4G LTE Ambitions possibly powered by Dekal Wireless
Principals
A lot of local investors are also involved.
My suspicion is that they may be mainly Chinese
businessmen as I'd predicted in my Geezam blog
article entitled “How
Chinese White Space Network possible in Jamaica by Independence Day”. In
fact, my thinking is that Caricel is a Jamaican company with Chinese investors,
both local and international.
According to my sources, they may be the same
Chinese investors pumping money into CellOne in Bermuda and GTT in Guyana as
opined in my Geezam blog article entitled “Digicel
and GTT 80 Mbps 4G LTE in Guyana hints at August 2016 Launch in Jamaica”.
Caricel may also be a replacement to Dekal Wireless,
seeing as testing on the Network began two (2) years ago, around the same time
that FLOW Jamaica had purchased in December 2014 as reported in the article “LIME
to take over operations of DEKAL Wireless”, published Tuesday, December 09,
2014, The Jamaica Observer.
Chinese
Investors in Caricel - White Space spectrum may power Caricel's 4G LTE
ambitions
The spokespersons didn't reveal what spectrum band
Caricel was using or how the backhaul transmission to the cell towers was being
provisioned. This is of interest to many Telecom Engineers, being as Digicel is
using the 700 MHz Band and FLOW Jamaica has been assigned the 1900 MHz and the
2100 MHz band for their 4G LTE rollout as explained in my blog article
entitled “LIME
and Digicel have purchase AWS and 700 MHZ Spectrum for 4G LTE”.
For this reason, I'm betting that the 4G LTE
Spectrum being used is based on the available White Space Spectrum which had
been tested by Microsoft as detailed in my blog article
entitled “How
White Space Testing by Microsoft at Park Hall Primary and Infant School heralds
80 MBps Competition in Jamaica”.
It's free, plentiful and has less attenuation than
even Digicel's 700 MHz spectrum for their 4G LTE Network. Whatever spectrum
they deploy, Caricel has already shaken up Digicel and FLOW Jamaica with their
plans to offer faster Wireless Broadband and high quality affordable
smartphones.
Here’s the link:
Symbiote Investments Limited
4 Eastwood Avenue,
Kingston 10
Tel: 876-614-4444
Website: http://www.caricel.net
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CaricelJamaica:
@Cariceljamaica
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