EXCLUSIVE: ‘If unfairly treated we have to fight’ – CCT stakeholder Dr Heskith A. Vanterpool
He was speaking to this news site in the wake of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court granting Caribbean Cellular Telephone (CCT) leave to apply for judicial review and issuing a stay of the 2015 Spectrum Award Process pending the outcome of the judicial review.
Virgin Islands News Online had first reported on October 1, 2015 that CCT was taking the TRC to court although parties in the matter were all tight lipped as to the details of the litigation at the time. The first court hearing was on October 2, 2015 before the Honourable Madam Justice Nicola Byer.
TRC biased against CCT
Speaking as a director of CCT, Dr Vanterpool said that they have always contended how the award process has been biased against CCT to the point where CCT’s registration for spectrum was initially accepted and then rejected without even a review.
“The process also wanted us to give up a major part of the 850 spectrum that we needed for our network to function. Our network is functioning well in the spectrum that has been allocated to us but the TRC wanted us to give that up to facilitate the spectrum award process,” he said.
“Surprisingly that spectrum that they are asking us to give up so that we can participate in the spectrum award process, is not even part of the spectrum award process,” he argued.
“So why are they asking us to basically destabilise our network when they do not even need that spectrum to award to anybody? [This is what] we have been fighting for the last two years,” he said.
This is the beginning of our fight
He said now that a judge has granted CCT leave to ask for a judicial review, they are hoping that in the process of time that CCT can be treated fairly in the award process. “We want to see the LTE spectrum awarded so that the country could move forward. But if we are going to be unfairly treated then we have to fight…and this is the beginning of our fight,” he said.
Dr Vanterpool said that based on the evidence that they have, CCT is of the belief that the TRC is trying to take away the 850 spectrum from it to give to another telecommunications company. “We have fought to keep it because we think our network needs it. We think that it is unfair for the TRC to take spectrum that they allocated to us to give to give to another competitor when that competitor has spectrum elsewhere that they can use,” said Dr Vanterpool.
No technical argument from TRC to support demand
According to Dr Vanterpool, there was no technical argument that they could present as to why it was necessary to take a significant part of the 850 spectrum from CCT.
He explained that while LTE can be done in many different frequencies, some frequencies are more desirable than others “because we are in an area where most of our roaming dollars come out of the US market and the US market uses mainly 700 and 850 spectrum.” He said that taking this from CCT to put in the hands of its competitor is to put that competitor in a much more advantageous position.
In a press release yesterday October 7, 2015, CCT said that it did not want an adversarial relationship with the TRC.
“CCT is grateful that the court has given us leave to apply for judicial review and we look forward to presenting our case regarding why our registration application for the 2015 Spectrum Award Process should be considered,” the press release quoted CCT CEO, Mr Romney Averad Penn, as saying.
“CCT maintains that it does not have or want an adverse relationship with the Commission. However, CCT has a tremendous responsibility to their loyal customers, dedicated employees, and local shareholders. Like any business, CCT has to make every effort to protect their investment. CCT remains committed to providing the most advanced telecommunications network available in the BVI,” the release said.
Efforts by this news site to get a direct comment from CEO Penn proved futile.
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33 Responses to “EXCLUSIVE: ‘If unfairly treated we have to fight’ – CCT stakeholder Dr Heskith A. Vanterpool”
We will now not get LTE for years because of personal greed and foolishness
This company and their owners do not speak for the country, they speak for themselves
Time for CCT to stop playing the victim
They are not victims they just want everything their way
The public are the real losers here
The truth needs to be spoken
Why do they charge me for one minute when I talk for 10 seconds. That is from last century
Wake up to the nonsense. Stop overcharging your customers instead of talking about lte
I also have a digicel phone and pay per second not per minute
When I talk for 10 seconds I pay for 10 seconds on CCT I would pay for 60 seconds. That is robbery
As i said when you dont know the facts u sit and talk all kind of nonsense. Your reading comprehension is very bad as well. Digicel is allegedly using spectrum that they are not allocated as well and the TRC was allegedly given evidence of it and they pushed it under the rug. Since you want it broken down to you.