Merchant continues fight with BTL

On Thursday night Belize Telecommunications Limited will hold its twelfth Annual General Meeting and, for many reasons, it is expected to be the stormiest in years. One issue sure to spark interest is BTL’s attempt to bar its customers from using new technologies, which allow low cost voice transmission over the Internet. Although the monopoly telecom is currently prevented from blocking access to the new services by a temporary court injunction, the matter has yet to be settled in a full hearing. Meanwhile, one of Belize’s largest dealers in internet voice equipment is offering a new internet fax machine which he says will offer low cost international fax messaging and does not violate any alleged rights of BTL.

Julio Chen, General Manager, USCOM

“In 1998 we signed this paper and they didn’t mention anything about voice or video. Then in the year 2000 we signed this paper and in the back it says that over the Internet we are not supposed to use voice and video transmission.”

“This time we are bringing 100 percent data. You can transmit on the Internet using simple mail transport protocol. We want to let BTL know, this is 100 percent data transmitted on the Internet. So there is supposed to be no problem.”

The new machine, called Super-Fax, allows users to transmit messages from e-mail to fax, fax to e-mail and fax to fax. USCOM’s Julio Chen is still not selling the machines because he wants BTL to first assure him that the technology is legal.

In related news, BTL today donated over two hundred mattresses and sleeping bags to hurricane victims in San Pedro, Caye Caulker and the Belize District. The assistance was valued at over twenty-five thousand dollars.