“This
transaction is in line with the strategy we outlined in May to grow our
business (B2B) and government (B2G) capabilities. Adding more than 350 IT
software and telecoms service engineers to our team will considerably boost our
capabilities in this field”
CEO of CWC Phil Bentley
in a News release on Friday August 29th 2014 on the recent
acquisition of Grupo Sonitel by CWC subsidiary CWP S.A. (Cable & Wireless
Panama)
While
Telecom Provider Digicel is spreading its wings in the form of a Caribbean-wide
Cable Network that’ll power it’s 4G LTE Ambitions as noted in my Geezam blog article entitled “Digicel
Turks and Caicos thinks Streaming over 4G LTE by buying Cable TV Internet
Provider”, Telecom Provider LIME is doing likewise.
They’re
recently acquired this as CWC subsidiary CWP S.A. (Cable & Wireless Panama)
on August 29th 2014 announced
that they’d recently acquired Panama-based Grupo Sonitel for US$36 million as
stated in the article “Cable
and Wireless enters three new markets with Panama acquisition” Published
Friday August 29, 2014, The Jamaica
Gleaner.
CWP S.A buys Grupo
Sonitel – CWC’s subsidiary Acquisition in Panama by the numbers
Cable
& Wireless Panama, over which CWC has both Management and Board Control,
has a curious ownership structure that breaks down as follows:
1. 49%
by the Cable & Wireless Communications
2. 49%
by the Government of the Republic of Panama
3. 2%
held in trust on behalf of the employees of CWP S.A
CWP
S.A main businesses in Panama include:
1. Fixed
Line
2. Mobile
3. Broadband
4. Cable
IPTV
5. Enterprise
Services
The
purchase of Grupo Sonitel is expected to be profitable as since the year ending
December 31st, 2013, they've been clocking revenues of up to US$77
million from continuing operations.
The
purchase of Grupo Sonitel consists of two (2) companies:
1. SSA
Sistema, a provider of manager IT solutions and Telecoms Services to Corporate,
Enterprise and Government customers in Panama
2. Sonset
is a providers of IT Solutions to SME (Small and Medium Enterprise) Customers
in Panama
This
acquisition of Grupo Sonitel, which was established in 1957, nets them some 350
skilled IT Technicians and Telecom Engineers as well as a company that's strong
on Vendor Certification partnerships:
1. Cisco
Gold Partner
2. Oracle
Platinum Partner
3. VMWare
Enterprise Partner
4. HP
Platinum Partner
The
acquisition also nets CWP S.A Corporate, Enterprise, Government and SME
customers in the following countries:
1. Panama
2. El
Salvador
3. Peru
4. Nicaragua
All
this is in keeping with their long term vision of netting more B2B (Business to
Business) and B2G (Business to Government), which is just a fancy way of saying
Corporate, Enterprise, Government and SME customers.
As
usual, the concession speech by President of Julio Spiegel R., a 44 year
veteran of Grupo Sonitel, quote: “With our customers and team in mind, joining
Cable and Wireless Communications was the best choice to secure the future of
Grupo Sonitel. By bringing together CWC's communications and network capabilities
with Grupo Sonitel's hosted solutions and IT expertise, we will be able to
deliver an unbeatable offer to our customers”.
CWC purchase of Grupo
Sonitel – Telecoms Engineers to build Jamaica’s 4G LTE Network
This
purchase is significant, as it explains the sudden influx of Latin American
Technicians into Jamaica to work as contractors to upgrade Telecom Provider
LIME Cell Sites to provision 4G LTE as I'd pointed out in my blog article entitled
“LIME
chooses AWS for 4G LTE – AWS Link Budget
difference reduces Shadowing as It’s all about Optimization and Human Nature”.
As
I’d explained, despite the spectrum being in the 2100 Mhz range, it's got
better bandwidth and is more business friendly, as the CPE (Customer Premesis
Equiptment) at the persons home would basically have an antenna placed outside.
Even Mobile customer using AWS spectrum wouldn't notice much of a difference,
as to use high Speed Data Services like 4G LTE on a smartphone, you'd be so
thoroughly engrossed that you'd have to stop at one place and access the
Internet.
Hopefully
this increase skilled base will mean that LIME Jamaica will see the rapid build
out of not only 4G LTE but also LIME TV as an IPTV Service as described in my blog article entitled
“LIME
experiences 25% increase in Profits due to MTR - 4G LTE and FTTH like Bahamas
with IPTV Streaming LIME TV will give LIME 3 Days to Kill”.
Thus
like Telecom Provider Digicel acquisition of Telstar Cable in Jamaica as part
of their Caribbean expansion into Cable TV and eventually Streaming TV as
predicted in my blog
article entitled “Digicel
acquires Telstar Cable – 4G LTE with a dash of Streaming Cable TV Service”,
expect to see CWC use this acquisition to expand into more Business Services
for Corporate, Enterprise, Government and SME customers in Central America.
No comments:
Post a Comment