Friday, 14/10/2011 10:07 AM
Natcom reached interconnection agreement with Digicel
On 8th September, 2011, at 2:15 A.M (local time), Interconnection agreement between Digicel and Natcom was officially signed after 1 year of negotiation.
Negotiations between two sides regarding this issue had launched since September, 2010 but failed to reach an agreement. Digicel took the reason of this problem as “different size of the Digicel network and that of the Natcom and the various technologies used by both companies, requiring Digicel to acquire new technological equipment, expensive and sophisticated to control interconnected calls.
However, Natcom and mobile operator Voilà soon reached an agreement long time before that. In Haiti Libre reports ((haitilibre.com) Robin Padberg, CEO of the company Voilà cited to declare that “Yes we talked about the Natcom, but we also talked about other operators. Every time that we introduce a new technology, a new player may enters on the market. We have no problem with the arrival of the Natcom, we welcome it on the market and we have an interconnection contract with this company for a long time [...] we began to see and test all things and now with the Natcom the things are Ok”
In other news by Haiti Libre, Allen C.Bayard Executive Director of AccessHaiti SA said that "Today, Digicel is the dominant player and it refuses, in contradiction with the law, the interconnection with Natcom, AccesHaiti SA and other operators [...] This is a problem that the state must resolve"
Natcom’s efforts backed by telecom regulator’s intervention (Conatel) are finally paid off. An awaiting agreement between Natcom and Digicel was inked which is of great importance to ensure benefits for not only Natcom’s customers but also more than 3 million Digicel’s existing customers.