Phillip Paulwell lambasts government for lagging regulatory environment

Durrant Pate/Contributor

Jamaica’s telecoms sector is falling behind global standards, according to the parliamentary Opposition, which says for more than a decade it has been advancing at a pace that is simply not commensurate with the demands of the modern digital economy.

Arguing that policy ambition in the sector has stalled, Opposition Spokesman on Energy and Telecommunications, Phillip Paulwell cited the last meaningful reform to be delivered was the implementation of number portability, which he introduced to Parliament as portfolio Minister in advance of the 2016 general election.

“That was ten years ago. What was left on the table in 2016 remains on the table today. The issues identified then as urgent priorities have not been resolved. They have simply been deferred, whilst the world has moved on and the gap between Jamaica’s regulatory framework and the realities of a rapidly evolving global sector has continued to widen,” he told the House of Representatives during his Sectoral Debate presentation on Tuesday.

Failing in local regulatory environment

1.   The convergence of technology must be met with a convergence of regulation. The boundaries between telecommunications, broadcasting and internet services have, in practical terms, ceased to exist. Our regulatory architecture has not kept pace. A unified regulatory framework is not a technical nicety; it is a prerequisite for fair competition and consumer protection in the digital age. 

2.   Jamaica’s transition from 4G LTE to 5G infrastructure cannot be allowed to proceed without a clear national strategy. Fifth-generation connectivity is not simply faster internet. It is the foundational infrastructure upon which the Internet of Things, telemedicine, precision agriculture, smart cities and the next generation of Jamaican industry will depend. We need a plan, and we need it now. 

3.   The co-location of telecommunications infrastructure must be made a regulatory requirement. Competing providers constructing parallel and duplicated physical infrastructure is wasteful, visually intrusive and economically inefficient. Mandated sharing of towers and physical assets reduces costs, accelerates deployment and ultimately benefits the Jamaican consumer. 

4.   Monopolistic control over access to submarine fibre cable capacity must be directly addressed. Fibre connectivity is the arterial infrastructure of the digital economy. Where access to it is controlled by a single dominant player without sufficient regulatory oversight, the result is higher prices and constrained competition. This Parliament must act to ensure that open access principles are properly enshrined in our regulatory framework. 

5.   Meaningful competition must be introduced in those basic service segments where market concentration continues to work against the interests of ordinary Jamaicans. Competition is not an end in itself; it is the mechanism by which consumers receive better service at lower prices. Where it is absent, the regulator must act. Where the regulator has not acted, this Parliament must demand an explanation. 

Sub-par quality service

The Opposition Spokesman emphasised that the five structural issues outlined are matters of urgent regulatory policy, arguing that the lived experience in Jamaica ultimately justifies the urgency of reform. 

According to him, “the quality of telecommunications service in Jamaica is, by any objective measure, below the standard that consumers are paying for and below the standard that a properly regulated market should deliver.”

Call interruption rates, he stated, remain persistently high while consumers are routinely charged for bandwidth that the network is not, in practice, delivering. For Paulwell, “these are not minor inconveniences. They are consumer rights failures, and they speak directly to the adequacy of regulatory enforcement in this sector.”

He said, the regulatory body, the Office of Utilities Regulation, has an obligation to enforce service quality standards with rigour and transparency, while parliament has an obligation to hold it accountable for doing so. 

“This Parliament must therefore act with urgency to require greater redundancy in our telecommunications infrastructure, to mandate minimum resilience standards and to establish clear accountability frameworks for recovery in the event of a national emergency. This is not a future aspiration. It is an immediate obligation of governance,” Paulwell told the legislature.