LIME ready to get into cable television market – GM

After more than two years of planning, telecommunications provider LIME says it is ready to get into the cable television market.{{more}}

Leslie Jack, LIME’s general manager, told SEARCHLIGHT on Tuesday, that all things being equal, Vincentians would be able to access television service in their homes, as well as streamed directly on their smartphones, through his company.

“We will be looking at launching TV within the next financial year … If we are going to launch a competitive product, we needed to make sure it’s better than what the competition is offering, and it will be better,” Jack said.

“Things like video on demand, which is not necessarily being offered in a big way by competitors, will be available. So, you could expect that and there are some other features around providing subscriber TV that would be introduced, that our competitor currently does not offer.”

The company’s financial year begins in April, but Jack pointed out that the service might be available by the middle of the year or so — as soon as some technicalities are worked out.

Jack stated that the service will be initially available on the Internet and would require a greater bandwidth than currently available.

The advent of broadcast television also spells the introduction of the fourth generation network, popularly known as 4G, which, Jack said, would benefit their mobile customers.

Currently, LIME customers use the Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) network, to wirelessly transmit data at an average rate of 130 kilobits per second.

Fourth Generation service would allow the transmission of data much faster.

“The experience will be great. Customers would be getting broadband type speed on their hand sets,” Jack said.

“There’s a whole lot of benefits that can be derived for St Vincent and the Grenadines in general as well. The government’s thrust has been around ICT type of services being available to all of St Vincent and they have done a number of projects to sort of drive that thrust,” Jack further stated. (JJ)