Smart introduces lower cost international phone service

In these interesting times there has been no shortage of news involving Belize Telecommunications Limited. But while most of the headlines have dealt with the legal dispute over the company’s ownership, its forays into the foreign exchange market or the bungled sale of its shares to the public, we sometimes forget that B.T.L. is a private company operating in a competitive world. And that competition heated up today with the inauguration of international telephone service by their upstart rival, Smart. We asked Smart C.E.O. Eduardo Santiago what took them so long?”

Eduardo Santiago, C.E.O., Smart
?It?s been very challenging because there?s been, quite frankly, opposition for us to launch the service. From the inception of Smart, they don?t want Smart to get into international services.?

Stewart Krohn
?Who are they??

Eduardo Santiago
?People who control, among other things, access to ARCOS, cables.?

Stewart Krohn
?You?ve gotten around that though, you are fully good to go??

Eduardo Santiago
?I am phoning the panel from ARCOS, I have redundant routes outside of ARCOS, and I met international interconnection agreements with major carriers, and we have full international services as of yesterday.?

Stewart Krohn
?How important is this step for you as a company??

Eduardo Santiago
?For us it?s very important, but I think overall, without taking anything out of proportion, I think it?s very important for the country, because we are able to provide the service which is required by a lot of people at very accessible rates and at very good quality. So it is important, not just for us, but for the country.?

Stewart Krohn
?Question: political turmoil, union turmoil at B.T.L. How would any future industrial action there influence the quality of service at Smart??

Eduardo Santiago
?Well as you know and perhaps some people know but maybe it?s not clear, we do lease some services from B.T.L. We have to be very straightforward about that. We lease from B.T.L. the call location in the towers, so some towers that B.T.L. has, we do lease space on those towers to put our antennas. In addition to that, we lease from B.T.L., what I call transmission capacity. So from those towers to my equipment location I rent fibre from B.T.L. So in some instances, if there?s some sort of turmoil, it might affect us. Now, we have taken steps and we have secured at least the whole Belize City coverage area from Ladyville up to the Western Highway and all of Belize City with our own links. So if there is some turmoil, at least our service will stay within Belize City, will be intact. In addition to that, our international routes will remain.?

Is the advent of international service by Smart the beginning of the long awaited era of true competition in Belize’s telecom market?

Eduardo Santiago
?I think there?s been competition from when we started. At this stage we have close to twenty thousand users and we don?t make a lot of brouhaha about that, but we have twenty thousand people who have trusted us and we give them a service. In addition to that, now what we have added is another element to the product mix, because we have competition in cellular but there was no competition in international. Now there?s competition in international, shortly we?ll give competition in fixed, we?re gonna give competition in data. So we?re gonna be a fully integrated telecom service provider that will provide competition in all the areas in which the people want a choice. And we are not just gonna offer a product, what we?re gonna offer is a solution. I?m not gonna ask you, you want something, buy from here.? No, I?m gonna ask you, ?what do you want?? and then I?ll make something tailor-made for your needs.?

At seventy-five cents per minute to the U.S.A., sixty-eight cents to Mexico and Central America, and a dollar seventy-four to Western Europe Smart’s rates are significantly cheaper than B.T.L.’s regular rates. The Smart system uses VOIP, Voice-over Internet Protocol, which makes its international calls similar in quality to B.T.L.’s 10-10-199 discount service, although at a cheaper price. One other appreciated feature offered by Smart is that customers are billed by the second and not rounded up the next minute.