DEBATING COMMERCIALIZATION OF INTERNATIONAL CALLS FROM BELIZE

TELECOMMUNICATIONS CHANGES NEEDED BY ANY NEW BELIZE, ELECTED MAFIA GANG, DICTATORSHIP

1) Distributors, SMART and BTL
2) WHOLESALERS none in the country as of yet, but could be with VOIP
3) RETAIL sellers and promotors of special long distance International phone cards.

DEBATE ON LINE:

I just want to add here that the de-facto...
Wendy Auxillou 10:37am Feb 23
I just want to add here that the de-facto monopoly on telecommunications should also be lifted, allowing the public at large to compete for all facets of telecommunications. In other countries, you can go to a store and buy a phone card from one of several hundred phone card providers who buy blocks of bandwidth from wholesalers and resell it in retail as VoIP based calls. What this means is that mom and pop businesses spring up all over, empowering local communities. Caye Caulker, for example, could have its own Caye Caulker branded phone cards that tourists could buy which will allow them to make local or long distance calls to anywhere. Net2Phone is one example, PennyTalk is another, my kids love RedCard, and there are many more. All that is required is for the FIBER OPTIC cable to be opened up for public use at wholesale rates. The government could then charge GST or whatever taxes on the sale of these phone cards. There is no reason why only ONE or TWO entitles should have a lock-down on the fiber optic cable.
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CONTRIBUTION:

"The PUP will open up the information super highway and allow the use of VOIP to spur innovation and development in I.C.T. BTL will offer high speed internet 1meg for $30 per month. Call Centres will be supported with training and infrastructure facilitation" - PUP Manifesto. (Now this is WAY better than the UDP's version, but it still does not go far enough. Free the fiber optic cable and free the internet. Belizeans should be able to compete in the 22nd century, and to stifle the internet is not the way to do it. Much more good can come from freeing the net. We could develop our own software programmers and offshore consultants and software engineers. I dare say, with free and affordable internet, and an enabling entrepreneurial environment, many new businesses would come calling. Not just call centers, but many others such as video game developers, software developers, etc. Technology is the future. Japan knows this and they have the best and cheapest internet on planet Earth. There is a reason why the population is technologically advanced.