Marlon Vickerman, Star Writer

Jamaica's burgeoning tele-communications sector is set to welcome another player when local mobile communications giant Digicel Jamaica and partners enter the arena with DigiTV come next year.

In a press release yesterday, Digicel highlighted that the company in partnership with DC Digital and FIMI Wireless' chief executive officer Bernard Henry, was granted an islandwide wireless subscriber television license by the broadcasting Commission of Jamaica.

affordable

The release said: "(the) joint venture will provide a state-of-the-art, affordable digital TV service right across the island of Jamaica, delivering a host of popular local and international TV channels which are currently only available through cable operators."

desire to bring true choice

Antoni Graham, head of public relations for the Digicel group, said the company was inspired to enter the digital television market out of the desire to bring true choice in TV to the people of Jamaica. "We intend to replicate the revolution that Digicel brought about in the mobile market in 2001 in the subscriber TV market," he said.

Graham said while DigiTV should be accessible in the coming year, she could not definitely give a date for its introduction nor could she say if the initiative would be ushered in on a phased basis.

When asked if the company was thinking about an internet service provider market, the public-relations head said that the company had nothing to announce in that regard at the moment.