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NEW JAMAICAN
Jamaica's People's Telecom Fight Mexican Giants for Freedom Wireless
Emerging Jamaican Company People’s Telecom forced to Fight Mexicans Giants for Freedom Wireless.
“Jamaica’s grassroots carrier struggles to prevent the foreign owned ODJ from taking its customer base and virtually forcing the Island’s only active Jamaican-owned full service telephone company out of business.” People’s Telecom, creators and marketers of the Freedom Wireless Cellular Calling plan, claimed in a statement yesterday that it is undergoing a very hostile attempt by Oceanic Digital Jamaica Limited (ODJ) to capture its customers and transfer them to the MiPhone plan owned by Oceanic Digital Jamaica Limited. Freedom Wireless is in a critical fight for its life as the recent actions taken by MiPhone has been most harmful to the company. “They have intercepted all our revenues by deactivating all existing Freedom Wireless rechargeable cards, leaving customers with no other option but to top-up with MiPhone cards. They have disconnected our access to the customer support system rendering us unable to provide adequate customer service to our customers. They have re-routed all calls from our international gateway to theirs hence we have no control of the call quality our customers receive. Also, they have sent texts to our customers offering them $1000 bonus credit as an incentive to switch from our service to theirs; they have interrupted the service of the customers who have not taken up the $1000 offer. They have forced Freedom Wireless to raise some rates by over 3,000 percent and just last week sent a text suggesting that payments made to our office cannot be verified. This last text was like a dagger into the heart of Freedom Wireless because our previously loyal customers are now stating that we cannot be trusted with their money which is an absolute fallacy – any unusual disruption of service is caused by MiPhone’s unilateral decisions” a despondent CEO Michael Dawson stated. Due to the loss of revenue, People’s Telecom has been forced to lay off 70% of its staff and all aspects of its operations have been affected. The company uniquely provides an unlimited calling plan for Jamaicans, which seems to be in jeopardy as the text sent out by MiPhone indicated its intent to switch customers to a plan with limited minutes with no free in network calling – a strong feature of Freedom Wireless. A similar change was forced upon the ex-MegaFone customers. “We are confident that the regulators and the government will intervene, not only are the consumers being hurt but this is also an insult to the image of our endorsers such as Miss Lou, Freddie McGregor and Oliver Samuels. This situation is making a mockery of the Jamaican people,” stated the Company’s Chief Operating Officer Keecha Hamilton. “Based on the stance taken against the RIU Hotel Organization and other large corporations recently, we hope for the same intervention by the government to protect the public from the actions of big business”, Hamilton said confidently. “Unless the powers that be get involved quickly, we will be dead in the water,” she continued. The irony of the situation is that after years of struggling to compete with the giants of the Jamaican Telecom industry; People’s Telecom, through Freedom Wireless, had finally emerged as a major player. Freedom Wireless experienced a proportionate increase in sales outpacing bigger companies – a first for a 100% Jamaican owned company. The company started to have massive growth during its Title Sponsorship of the Africa Unite Film launch and its sponsorship of The African Nations Football Tournament on TVJ started to payoff. Danny Glover then gave the company a strong endorsement by stating in an advertisement that “brothers and sisters must support this Jamaican thing!” As demand skyrocketed, Freedom Wireless suddenly reported that ODJ stopped providing new phone numbers thereby preventing the company from activating new customers; simultaneously its existing customers started to receive substantial drop calls at night casting doubt on Freedom Wireless’ ability to offer a quality service. People’s Telecom would like for its loyal subscribers as well as all the people of Jamaica to know that its fight for Freedom has just begun. “We intend to pursue this matter on behalf of every Jamaican as there is a current sentiment in Jamaica that our rights as a people are being challenged by foreign owned businesses. Our “freedoms,” are important to us; we have come a long way as a people, many of our forefathers died so simple Jamaicans like us can operate a business like this. We are not going to insult their memory by just rolling over so that Jamaicans can get trampled on again. Never again,” a defiant Dawson stated. People’s Telecom Jamaica is a fully licensed Jamaican Telephone company founded in 2003, headquartered in Kingston with operations in the United States and Canada. For more information contact the offices of Attorney Michael Lorne at 876 922-3915 or Roderick Gordon at 876 960-7769. NEW JAMAICAN Vol.2  
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