Cable cutters plague Vietnamese owned Haitian telco

When the Vietnamese state owned telco officially became the majority owner of Haitian national telecommunication company, it likely had no idea what kind of trouble it was in for.

Cool $59 million back in April of 2010

With Viettel snapping up 60% of Teleco's shares for a cool $59 million back in April of 2010, the company revamped both its name - to NatCom - and its vision to repair and build out the island's fiber networks afterwards the massive Earthquake of January 2010 wreaked havoc.

Needless to say, NatCom's plans for covering every inch of the country with fiber optic cables for faster internet connections that could be used for VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) calling, has not delighted the mobile players. Nor has its aim to supplement its fixed phone services with mobile. The firm has even said it plans to offer free calling between NatCom clients in the same region.

"In the past most businesses paid a telco employee to make sure their phone lines and data lines stayed up," our source told us on condition of anonymity.

"If there was a problem the business had one person to call and yell at and they were motivated to fix the problem," he went on.

The basic service that

"Many of these ex-employees quit because Teleco really stopped being able to offer the basic service that was supporting their supplemental revenue stream," he told us, adding, "nobody in Haiti has a working +509 22xx xxxx phone number."

Of course most of that revenue has now been picked up by wireless carriers like Digicel and Voila, however NatCom seems determined not to be deterred by efforts to sabotage its plans.

Every wireless operator has strategies and processes in place to attract and retain enterprise clients. A carrier without a clear vision for every type and size of business is leaving money on the table, in essence letting its competitors gain influence and power.

The continuous demand for every-increasing speeds

The continuous demand for every-increasing speeds and capacity for broadband is causing carriers and cable companies to dramatically shift their network strategies.