FTC promises 4G ruling this month
Published:Friday | March 4, 2011 | 12:00 AM
The Fair Trading Commission (FTC) says it will make a determination within weeks into complaints against Digicel Jamaica by rival LIME, which alleged that the Irish company's WiMax residential service was being advertising falsely as 4G technology.
"We expect to tie it off in March," FTC executive director David Miller told the Finacial Gleaner on Monday.
"We have all the information, so before the end of March we will make a determination."
Digicel began marketing its WiMax service last September after pouring at least J$2 billion of capital into its build-out. Shortly thereafter, LIME filed a complaint with the FTC accusing Digicel Jamaica of misrepresenting its WiMax broadband technology as 4G, citing positions held by the International Telecommunications Union, which to that point had not published a definition for what constituted fourth-generation technology.
But by December, the ITU's position changed after its annual World Radiocommunication Seminar held in Geneva, where it was determined that 'LTE-Advanced' and 'WirelessMAX-Advanced' should be accorded the official designation of IMT-Advanced.
"As the most advanced technologies currently defined for global wireless mobile broadband communications, IMT-Advanced is considered as 4G," it said, in a December 6 press release.
Digicel used the ruling to affirm that its "4G Broadband is the fastest wireless broadband available in Jamaica."
The FTC, however, said the ITU's new position would not end its investigation of the complaint, which would take into consideration the timing of the roll-out.