Digicel faces Carribean headwinds

Caribbean telco Digicel is facing legal challenges in Antigua & Barbuda and Haiti.

Antigua & Barbuda has been trying to force the telco to give up part of its spectrum in the 850MHz band, with Prime Minister Gaston Browne recently threatening to try and buy out Digicel.

In May, the government ordered Digicel and rival Cable & Wireless Communications, which operates under the Flow brand, to return a significant portion of spectrum in the 850MHz band to reassign it to state-owned operator Antigua Public Utilities Authority (APUA), which the government says is at a competitive disadvantage.

In early June, Digicel secured a court order to prevent the confiscation of the band saying that it agrees with fair competition "but this is not the way to go about it."

Then, on his radio program on June 16, the prime minster took a more belligerent stance alluding to Digicel as a "monopoly" and saying he had already informed he company the government mulls buying a 51% controlling stake.

"Ultimately, if they think they are going to kill APUA, I will say not under my administration. If anything, they will get killed."

He added, "I recognize that the telecom space is somewhat overcrowded because the market is so small it really probably justifies a monopoly, at best two players, so if one has to leave I want to tell them it won’t be APUA.”

Meanwhile, Digicel denied it had been approached by the government regarding a buyout.

"Digicel would like to make it clear that it has not received any approaches of any kind at any time from the prime minister or anyone in the government of Antigua & Barbuda with regard to a buyout of Digicel's operations in the twin island state," it said.

The company added that "the real issue" is, "the unfair, anti-competitive and illegal actions by the government of Antigua & Barbuda in seeking to confiscate Digicel's legally allocated spectrum for the benefit of the state-owned operator, APUA."

Government lawyer Anthony Astaphan reportedly said telecommunications legislation would be amended to ensure that "spectrum already allocated to a provider [is] distributed or shared with somebody else to create an even playing field."

HAITI

Digicel is expected to file a motion this week to get a Haiti-linked case thrown out of a New York court.

Haitian immigrants to the US accuse the company of "conspiring" in a "fraudulent scheme" to collect fees for the government.

The immigrants allege that Digicel helped Haitian politicians pocket levies like a US$1.50 charge on every money transfer or US$0.5 per minute on every call to Haiti, when they were supposed to fund an education initiative.

In related news, Haiti’s telecoms regulator Conatel has reportedly rejected a request from the country’s two mobile operators for a four-year exclusivity contract on providing LTE services. Conatel grants them exclusivity for only one year.

The regulator’s director Jean-David Rodney reportedly said that Natcom, which is owned by Vietnamese state telco Viettel, launched 4G in Haiti in September 2016 and received an additional block of 1700MHz last year.

A Digicel spokesperson told BNamericas that the company had not made a "formal request" to the regulator, but that such a request is one element proposed by an independent commission called by the prime minister. Negotiations continue.

According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), in 2017, Haiti had a mobile penetration of only 57.4%.