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Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister with responsibility for??Telecommunications,??Sen. Darcy Boyce

A Government Official is calling on Information and Communication Technology (ICTs) providers to make services more affordable to the public.

This call from Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister with responsibility for Energy Telecommunications, Immigration and Invest Barbados, Senator Darcy Boyce.?? He was speaking at the Opening of the Digicel/Barbados Chamber of Commerce and Industry Seminar on Information and Communication Technology (ICT’s), today at the Hilton Barbados.

Senator Boyce stated that the average person uses information technology in their daily lives and, therefore, the demand for these types of technology continues to grow.

" … It is critical that the country’s telecommunications capacity is able to support adequately, and indeed admirably, the computer technology that is available to businesses and individuals to go about their daily concerns," he said.

The Telecommunications Minister pointed out that although there was a need for these services to be affordable to the average Barbadian, the quality of the products should not be compromised.

"We want to see increases in the volume of telecommunication services in Barbados, with commensurate reductions in the price of such services.?? At the same time, we do not wish to achieve these two parameters with a decline in quality and reliability of the services.?? We also wish the quality and reliability to improve even as the volume increases and the price falls," he added.

Stressing that service providers should also benefit from this "budding" industry, Senator Boyce noted:?? "While we are all supportive of an increased number of capable service providers, we are also conscious of the very limited size [of] Barbados and the implications such small size may have for adequate profitability of providers.?? In such a situation, it is generally quite difficult for more than one company to build the total infrastructure required to provide a service; ….?? However, better use would be made of such capital investments, from a national perspective, if those facilities were shared and such sharing priced reasonably".

aisha.reid@barbados.gov.bb

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