FLOW can’t catch a break:
CABLE & Wireless Jamaica, which trades as FLOW, is reviewing the decision of the Telecommunications Appeal Tribunal after its efforts to challenge the schedule of cuts to fixed-line termination rates were rejected.
Asked if it would be appealing further, FLOW said it was “considering its options”, but declined to say what venue it chose for the challenge were it to continue fighting the rate decision by its regulator, the Office of Utilities Regulation, or OUR.
In the meantime, the OUR has advised that it implemented the second and final reduction in fixed termination rates on April 1, under a preset glide path which saw the first reduction on December 1, 2017. The final reduction was implemented following the Telecommunications Trinubal’s judgment, which OUR said was delivered last week.
FLOW, which dominates the fixed-line phone business in Jamaica, had challenged the sixmonth glide path, saying it would be disruptive to its business, and had attempted to have the period extended to about three years.
The tribunal “expressed the view that it had no authority to substitute its own views on the OUR’s decision, as that decision had not been shown to be so manifestly unreasonable or irrational that it constituted an abuse of the OUR’s powers,” the regulator said.
The telecoms appeal on the ground of procedural unfairness also failed.
“The tribunal indicated that it was satisfied that the OUR made sufficient efforts to hear the views of all relevant stakeholders before making its decision on the implementation of the rates,” added the OUR.
The telecoms tribunal consists of three members appointed by the minister in charge of telecommunications, one of whom must be a former judge of the Supreme Court or the Court of Appeal, who acts as chairman; one is recommended by the Jamaica Telecommunications Advisory Council, a 5- to 9member body on which FLOW is represented; and a member recommended by the Consumer Affairs Commission.
In June 2017, the OUR, after consultation with the telecommunications industry, determined fixed termination rates should be reduced and announced it would effect the cuts over six months.
It delayed implementation of the glide path after objections from FLOW, but eventually began implementation in December of that year, after court action was decided in the regulator’s favour.
The Supreme Court, two months earlier, had rebuffed FLOW’s efforts for a judicial review and interim injunction against the OUR. The telecoms then turned to Telecommunications Appeal Tribunal in its continued legal efforts to derail the OUR decision, but was again denied last week.
The OUR has determined that termination charges for phone calls that connect to the fixed-line networks are to be reduced by 70 to 90 per cent, which would lead to cheaper phone calls for subscribers.
Termination or wholesale rates represent charges between interconnecting carriers and may be a component of the retail rate ultimately paid by customers, the OUR said earlier this year.
However, the regulator also cautioned that since retail rates are not regulated, it is up to telecoms to decide whether to reduce call charges to customers.