Something to Talk About

When I was a child, I found this anecdote that was told to me about my two neighbours in a bus in the early 1990s quite funny:

"Mave I get the thing"
"Elsa, what ting?"
"De f"
"What is de f?"
“De ting I tell you about!”
“I aint know nothing you supposed to get starting with f”
"Steups. The phone!"

I found the story poignant, not because of my neighbour's poor spelling ability but because of her excitement over a telephone. It was an excitement I knew and lived because although I grew up in the 1990's, this was small-town-in-the-Caribbean nineties where a fixed line was a luxury. I remember the precise day Grentel (as it was then called) came to install our telephone line. We watched the men clad in yellow in admiration. They were heros.These were the days where not everyone had a refridgerator so those who did sold gigantic blocks of ice set in huge pan buckets. Where hair grease and butter were sold by the ounce, rice and sugar sold by the pound, and oil and rum sold by the eighth. Where there was no cable television and local television was so grainy we chose to read books and play football and cricket in our village pasture instead. It was a time when the local government school was haunted by bhakus and jumbies. My  seven year old nephew has told me it still is.

The Caribbean has moved on a lot since then. Now, our use of mobile phone technology has surpassed our own expectations. Fixed lines are now depassé and declassé. Cell phone mania has struck and it is with us to say. The first sign that I had of cell phone usage becoming out of sync with reality was in 2008,  when I saw one of my neighbours walking down the street with a cell phone clipped to his back pocket and another tied to his shoelaces. Other signs of mania are inevitably present. My twenty year old neighbour does not have a job but chooses to sport an Iphone. Blackberries, which cost upwards $1000 XCD are increasingly de rigueur with schoolchildren no less. The use of mobile phones is also profligate. In buses one can often be privy to an entire thirty minute conversation based on nothing more than "I am on the bus" and hours of juicy and salacious but mindless gossip. “Yes she throw de chile, she man beating her”.

In lots of  Caribbean countries, the number of active handsets and numbers exceeded the population so it appeared that a significant number of people in the Caribbean have a phone on both networks (Digicel and Cable and Wireless in Grenada, TSTT and Digicel in Trinidad). I found it telling that the highest mobile penetration rates in the whole of Latin America and the Caribbean in early 2009 could be found in Jamaica (115%). This should be taken in the context of the fact that mobile penetration in Latin America and the Caribbean on the whole was approximately 80% in early 2009, well above the world average which was about 58% (Telecoms Market Research, May 2009). The mobile phone market is quoted as being the most rapidly growing of all consumer electronics in the Caribbean (Entrepeneur Magazine).

Further statistics on consumer perception are astonishing. The Ericsson Consumer Survey on ICT in the Caribbean based on 40,000 interviews shows that there are a significant number of phone users who constitute the mainstream materialist and mainstream youth market: their characteristic justification: "My phone means I belong among my peers" and "I want a phone that makes me look good even when I cannot afford it". Shocking but not really surprising. I have actually heard a woman on a popular call in programme recite three different mobile numbers (all hers) whilst soliciting funds over the radio for her sick child’s hospital fees. When questioned why she was requesting assistance yet had three mobile phones she was rather non apologetic, explaining that she needed one on each of the competing networks and that the other had been a gift.

It is true to say that the Caribbean region has been a hive of activity over the past five years as markets have opened up. The key beneficiary to date has been Digicel, which has aggressively targeted incumbents generally run by Cable and Wireless. Digicel, run by Irishman Denis O’Brien, much to my chagrin, is seen as the saviour to the poor, saving us from a mobile free life, even though we can scarcely make two ends meet. It is telling that when Grenada chose to implement VAT on cell phone use last year, this issue stirred the most debate (even leading to a pop up Facebook group) although taxes were implemented on other essential, and arguably more important items.

I am not saying at all that the explosion in the use of cell phones cannot be used to harness development. It is certainly important that the gap between the information haves and have nots are bridged. Mobile phones can be used to stimulate business, for money transfers (Jamaica is a shining beacon) and for equally other laudable objectives. However, there are a few issues that concern me.

First, is the ongoing reliance on the pay as you go model. The pay as the go model, which relies on the availability of credit as and when one needs it, promotes a top-up culture. Top-up culture is now a part of Caribbean life. Transactions are bartered in telephone credit and support for services are sometimes expressed in terms of telephone cards. It is not uncommon to have someone ask for a ten dollar card in lieu of actual hard cash or a transfer of a dollar’s worth of top up credit. I do not like top up culture because it does not rely on reasonable forecasting, budgets, estimates and use projections. It relies on the blissful lack of awareness of how much one really spends on telephone calls as there is no bill, no breakdown, no account, and so there are no checks and balances. Top up culture is part of the culture of want it now, get it now, without regard as to how one decision might impact on others. Top up culture also prevents the building of any lasting relationships with a brand which is typical of the relationships built with mobile phone giants in the US and in the UK such as TMobile and Vodafone. Contracts exist, but without a strong contract culture, lots of customers do not get the additional tie-ins that many abroad take for granted such as inclusive minutes and text messages and a free-at-the-point-of-purchase handset. This means that the market is still young and  relatively immature.

Secondly, I have a problem with what I consider the exorbitant charges paid for telephone calls and telephones in the Caribbean. Persons on developing country wages are being charged developed country rates. For example, Digicel’s Flex rates for St Lucia are 75 cents a minute from a Digicel to Digicel telephone (almost 20p) when in the UK a network to network service is either free or 5p a minute. Calls to fixed lines are 80 cents a minute (the equivalent price in the UK). Surely, mobile phone prices should be linked to the purchasing ability of consumers? Then again, I have never heard a complaint about call charges so perhaps it is affordable and I am becoming a stingy, mean Englishwoman. I have the same complaint on the price of phones. The Blackberry 9000 comes in at an eyewatering $2400 XCD (600 pounds). This telephone retails for 305 pounds without a contract in the UK.

Thirdly, I have a problem with the iconisation of the mobile telephone as a status symbol. In my eyes, one can never be as well dressed as when wearing a hat and gown and there is a great status symbol in a degree hanging on one’s wall. The mobile phone is at the end of a long list in status symbols that we, the poor, try to emulate as a sign of supposed progress. Cheap clothes, brand name sneakers and yup Clarks, fall at the front of this category. Having a nice phone without having a steady job and a good education is akin to building a house and putting cable TV in before running water or buying a dressing table before a bed. Sporting the latest Blackberry, Nokia or Samsung will never hide an empty brain or an empty pocket.

Finally,  it is worth noting that Digicel sued Cable and Wireless for almost 300 million dollars for allegedly impeding its entry into the Caribbean market. This means that Digicel believes that a proportion of the Caribbean market is worth 300 million. The corporate social responsibility projects of these telecom giants do not reflect the significance of this market. Donations to individual artists and education and culture never reach the hundreds of thousands. Considering that the income of all the telecommunications companies come from the pockets of a struggling populace, it would be great if the companies come together to sponsor telecommunication projects and education schemes in the Caribbean islands that would empower our people. Then, and only then, will I have something to talk about.

(Image: Digicel Barbados, all rights reserved).