Digicel to abolish US, Caricom roaming charges

Business

Friday, August 09, 2013

Digicel will eliminate roaming charges for clients travelling within the US and Caricom, effective October 1, 2013.Phillip Paulwell, Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU) president, announced the agreement with the mobile telecoms giant throughout the region on Wednesday at the opening ceremony of the joint CTU, International Telecommunications Caribbean Ministerial Forum on ICT in Port of Spain, Trinidad.“After some negotiation, Digicel has agreed as of October 1, 2013, on the abolition of voice roaming on Digicel’s network in Caricom countries. Each travelling subscriber will be treated as if he is using his local/domestic Digicel network throughout the region and therefore will be billed accordingly,” said Paulwell, who is also Minister of Technology, Energy and Mining in Jamaica.In a press release late yesterday evening, Digicel announced that it will dispense of US roaming rates as well.Paulwell said negotiations would continue with Digicel for the abolition of roaming on data charges by year-end, and for the removal of taxes on international calls in Jamaica and Haiti.Discussions are ongoing with LIME, the region’s other major telecoms provider, on a plan for that company to eliminate roaming charges, the CTU president said.“The overall aim is to abolish roaming for both voice and data, and the objective is to achieve this by year-end,” Paulwell said.“Those charges hinder affordable communication between Caribbean people, and as we move toward greater regional unity, we must take every opportunity to remove the barriers that keep us apart.” PAULWELL… we must take every opportunity to remove the barriers that keep us apart.

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Digicel to abolish US, Caricom roaming charges