Blames substantial increases in the costs of doing business for rate hike

Jamaican based regional telecoms provider, Digicel has announced that it is hiking rates in Trinidad and Tobago.

The hike is set to take effect next month with the announcement coming on Monday, the very day its competitor’s, Flow, previously announced price increase would take effect. In a notice to customers, Digicel confirmed that the rates for most of its customers would be going up, also announcing that all affected subscribers will receive increased speeds of up to 200Mbps.

Digicel state, “Like every company across the globe, we are dealing with the impact of substantial increases in the costs of doing business. Not to mention here in Trinidad and Tobago, internet usage has doubled when compared to pre-pandemic levels, the costs of international television content continue to rise, and over-the-top (OTT) apps are growing in popularity, increasing internet pressures and further driving up our operational costs.”

Additionally, given the demands for more internet, faster speeds and greater reliability, Digicel acknowledged that it must also improve the network’s resilience and redundancy to help prevent outages and downtime in the event of an outage.

Taking action to deliver

According to Digicel, “Since our services are only as good as the money we invest in them, we must take action to ensure that what we deliver matches up to what you expect. Therefore, it is against this background that we must implement new packages from June 1, 2023, and take this opportunity to provide 30-day advance notice, which is in line with our commitment to communicate openly with our customers.”

Digicel in the notice acknowledged it had suffered a major outage recently and also that it had raised its rate twice in the last 12 months. While the last increase was based on the same reasons given on Monday, Digicel notes that its February adjustment was related to one specific plan, the variety-200, which had additional value added beyond the increase in price. 

The telecoms provider explained that under the new package, its base deal would move from the Fibre 150 to the Fibre 200 and would see customers’ bills increase by $20 from $285 to $305, while its TV and internet counterpart the Modern Fibre 100, as well as the Modern Fibre 150 bundle, rise by $15 to $325 and $390 respectively. While the vast majority of the packages would see increases ranging from $15 to $60, some affected packages will increase by as much as $331.

Last month, Flow announced its rates would be increasing by 3.5 per cent on May 1, 2023, due to external economic pressures.