Columbus Launches Two Customer Service Centers in the Caribbean

Telecom capacity vendor Columbus International has launched two customer service centers to bolster its presence in the Caribbean, where it has grown from operating in four countries to eight over the course of the last year.

Trinidad will be the site for the company’s regional call center while Jamaica will host the customer retention and collections functions. The new centers will create over 100 new jobs in the region, taking the total staff of the company to 1,800.

Across the Caribbean, the market for wholesale broadband capacity is experiencing solid growth and showing no sign of slowing. Yet Columbus believes it needs to retain its existing customers as the competition grows after British firm Cable and Wireless’ launched a rival service in the islands.

Analysts say Columbus is positioning itself to take full advantage of the expected growth in demand. Columbus is a growing telecom giant in the region, with its subsidiary Flow competing fiercely with Cable and Wireless’ LIME unit.

Based in Bridgetown, Barbados, Columbus, which operates in 27 markets in the greater Caribbean, Central American and Andean region, is estimated to be managing 70% of the region’s traffic. The firm made US$504 million in revenue in 2013, according to Moody’s rating agency.

Last year Columbus initiated operations in Barbados, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia, and Antigua & Barbuda. It also operates in Trinidad, Jamaica, Grenada and Curacao and in total serves over 650,000 customers.

Columbus’ plans in the Caribbean are to wire up the scattered islands int he same manner that it has wired up scattered rural communities in Canada. Columbus also recently expanded to Colombia where it acquired smaller telecom wholesale vendor Lazus.