Caribbean Integration September 3, 2008
Posted by Emir in Politics, Trinidad and Tobago.Tags: Caribbean, caricom, csme, federation, Manning, Politics, trinidad, Trinidad and Tobago, union
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Yes – unfortunately for those who may have wished otherwise I have not in fact died. I was simply caught up in a slew of real-world activities that acted as a brick wall of sorts between me and my blog.
So our dear Prime Minister Patrick Manning has decided to pursue regional integration amongst Caricom states – economically by the year 2011 and politically by the year 2013. To this end, Manning has been jetting about the region selling his idea. Thus far, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and St. Lucia have signed the Memorandum of Understanding on the matter.
So is this a good idea or not? Well, it really does depend on what angle you look at it from. In the short term this could actually be quite a drain on T&T’s economy in trying to sustain the others. In addition, T&T businesses will probably end up outclassing many of the smaller enterprises on the other islands. But what about in the long haul? We live in the era of super states. China and India are poised to reclaim their place as the world’s most powerful economies, the Russian Federation is sitting on immense oil wealth and has begun flexing its muscles once again, the European Union has become incredibly powerful and the United States is doing all it can to closer integrate itself with Canada and Mexico. Meanwhile there are inklings of unions in the African continent, South America, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region.
What place would small island nations such as those found in the Caribbean have in a world of unions and federations? How would our voice be heard and how will we effectively get the best value for our resources on the open market? It has to be admitted that there is some element of truth in saying to integrate or perish.
It will be a long, rough road and yes, a united Caribbean front has been attempted before and failed. – look up the West Indies Federation of 1958. However, we live in a different time and while I do not see it happening in Manning’s proposed time frame I think the seeds have been now planted in people’s minds. As time passes by the idea will become more palpable and eventually could even be accepted by the masses.
We shall see. Done right, a united Caribbean could in fact benefit us all.
TSTT cannot be serious August 12, 2008
Posted by Emir in Science and Technology, Trinidad and Tobago.Tags: tstt, internet, adsl, blink, trinidad, Trinidad and Tobago, bmobile, broadband, phone
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TSTT is probably one of the worst companies I have ever had to deal with. Fortunately, I live in a country where I enjoy freedom of speech and as such can speak about my experiences when a company has failed in the provision of its services.
To those who do not know, TSTT is the Telecommunications Services of Trinidad and Tobago. It is 51 % owned by the Government of Trinidad and Tobago and 49% by Cable & Wireless. I might add that until fairly recently, TSTT held a monopoly over the telecommunications market, a monopoly I personally believe the Government of T&T only relinquished due to the increasing economic partnerships (such as CSME and the now-stalled FTAA) in which the country has become involved that call for liberalized markets. I will split this blog entry into Cellular and Internet segments.
Cellular
I am sure most of us who live in the western hemisphere have seen the Verizon Wireless advertisements on American cable channels where a guy roams the United States calling into his phone, “Can you hear me now?” This was the sour reality of cellular service in T&T for many, many years. Imagine at one point (while we were using TDMA technology but most of the world had long gone GSM) we had to pay not only for calls we made, but calls we received! My phone remains prepaid to this day because I have heard too many people complain of finding massive postpaid bills for calls they never made.
Fortunately, Digicel has entered the market, forcing TSTT to slash its cellular prices, increase its feature set and rebrand the service to “bmobile”. You know what’s really quite funny though? TSTT was there for so many years, yet Digicel managed to arrive and in record time provided more reliable service, more coverage area, more features and a clean slate. TSTT did make a great comeback with its improved service, prices and advertising campaign but…they turned a massive loss in doing that. For the first time ever, I might add.
Internet
How about internet services? Broadband took a very long time to arrive in T&T. But when it did, we got a whopping 128k ADSL connction for TT$460 a month – that’s US$72 and includes tax. WOW. Did I mention its North American competitors were already offering 2 and 3MB connections by then for half the cost? Eventually we got a boost to 256k. Yey. Wave flag.
Recently, Columbus Communications bought over our halfway excuse for a cable company and converted the system to digital. One of the benefits was cable internet (the old cable company tried it before but it was an abysmal failure). TSTT saw this coming and decided to upgrade their network. They have changed the service name to “Blink Broadband”, and I now get a 2MB connection. I can get “up to” 10MB but only if I pay TT$700 a month which even a geek like myself is uncomfortable with.
Now here’s the kicker. They tell me the speeds before were so slow because they have only just upgraded the system to ADSL2+. Are they serious? Do I look like a complete moron? Old school ADSL would have provided up to around 9MB. The ADSL2+ they have now rolled out can offer 24MB!
That aside, they did choose an appropriate name for the service. My connection really does tend to BLINK. Every evening at a little after 6pm, my DSL signal will drop, and require a modem reboot to resume the connection. It then happens again at a little before 7pm. It tends to be more troublesome than that on weekends. Their tech support told me that it’s my phone line. Now I don’t believe my physical phone line likes to malfunction only at specific times of the day, but they have now promised me three times to investigate it but never did.
I should not expect less. Usually when I call their tech support I get put through to a call center somewhere in India where a guy will make me look over every single modem setting by the book unless I point blank ask if there is a problem with the service. At my workplace, we requested our internet package be upgraded to a higher speed. We never got it, but a technician did come in to switch our modem for another of the exact same model (while letting us know the lady we spoke to on the phone did not know what she was talking about!). A week later another technician randomly and without request delivered a third modem, also of the exact same model.
Sigh. You may be wondering why I’m still with TSTT. It was only because I was waiting to see how FLOW, which has just recently been installed in my area has been working out for others. I’m going to switch as soon as I get the chance. FLOW has 3x the speed for the same price anyway and excellent reviews. If it works out at home, I’m also going to recommend my workplace migrates with immediate effect.
In closing
TSTT, you are a downright shame on all local business enterprises. Trinidadians and Tobagonians are always being told to support our local business, but how can we do so when the service is as abysmal as it is?
