It sounds like your argument consists of three parts: First, that the law is clear with regard to (and at odds with) Digicel’s request; second, staff and Acting Director Wells at the Department of Telecommunications overlooked the clarity of the law when issuing approval; and third, since it is clearly an error, Government can simply withdraw its approval letter whenever it wishes.

As to first point, if the law were so unambiguous, then I’d have to guess that none of this would have happened in the first place. If the speed limit is clearly posted at 50 km/hr, then a request to drive at 70 km/hr will be turned down. But if the rule is just “Caution- Slow”, then 5, 10 and even 20 km/hr might be acceptable. I find it hard to believe that the law is so clear, yet the Department of Telecommunications ignored that clarity and granted approval.

Second, the application process has, according to Digicell, been going on for at least July 2011, and has involved many people from the Department of Telecommunications, as well as the Solicitor General, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Environment, Planning and Infrastructure Strategy and the Minister of Finance. It appears that very specific questions relating to their intent to offer ILD services have been raised by Digicel over the course of this process, beginning with the 4 July 2011 letter. The idea that so many people could blindly ignore the clarity of the law over so long a review period doesn’t seem possible, particularly when the specific issue was called to their attention at a number of points in the process.

Finally, almost eight months have passed since the approval letter of 20 October 2011. If a mistake were made, or the “sleepers overlooked Digicel’s scheme”, the time to correct that would be much closer to the issuance date of the letter than now. Since there has been no change in the law between then and now, and Digicel has complied with the terms of the approval letter, it has every right to rely on the letter, and so make investments and other plans based on this clear approval. If not, then no business would make an investment in Bermuda, because the risk of an arbitrary reversal of a prior approval at any time would always hang over the head of investors.

I’m not of counsel; I don’t know if you are. But my guess is that we are each making the arguments that will be made in Court, and it will be up to the Court to reach a fair decision. I believe that Digicel’s application is actually favorable to consumers, and so hope that the Court will find in their favor.

I also believe that the public bickering and grandstanding by Digicel, Mr. Simons, Minister Bean and others is highly inappropriate; it would have been far better for this to have been worked out behind closed doors than to have been splayed across the media. To that extent, I believe that no one has perfectly clean hands in this matter.

AVP

The letter from Michael Wells, Acting Director of Telecommunication to Digicel responds to the question, “Is it acceptable to offer all three services of ISP/Mobile and ILD (utilizing VOIP) to customers … using our Mobile License and Transact License” by stating “Yes, if you provide an Interconnection Agreement between yourself and Transact…” and goes on to remind Digicel that it “can offer ILD over VOIP only.”

I don’t see anything that states that Digicel ILD traffic cannot be routed via VoIP period. In fact, the letter clearly states the opposite, provided an Interconnection Agreement is provided.

Am I mis-reading the Acting Director’s letter?

AVP

PS- With regard to the truck analogy, if you a had letter from TCD stating the conditions under which you could drive the truck without a license, then I think your analogue would be closer to the Digicel situation.

How do you know that Digicell’s ILD service isn’t offered via VoIP?

AVP

You jumped the gun, now take a chill pill and get back in your lane…

We do not wish to pay for your legal costs.

I’m Just Saying…

“We at Digicel would like to address a statement just released by the Digicel Group in response to Digicel’s claim that Dicigel is Digicel.”