PRESS RELEASE
Friday, July 14th, 2017
$1 MILLION PER GB FOR DATA IS OUTRAGEOUSLY EXORBITANT – G2K
Kingston, Jamaica: Generation 2000 (G2K), the young professional affiliate of the Jamaica Labour Party is reiterating its call for the regulations on data services to be revisited. This follows information received that one of the major telecoms providers in Jamaica charges approximately J$1 Million per GB for international data roaming, after taxes and fees are added.
President of G2K, Stephen Edwards lamented “Data roaming fees are outrageously exorbitant and need to be revisited. I will give an example to put international data roaming costs into perspective. Any Jamaican who is not on a data roaming plan, who attempts to stream two episodes of local news while visiting the United States, will incur approximately J$1 Million in charges. It is imperative that regulators and policy makers take a fresh look at the rates that are charged locally given that data is rapidly becoming a necessity for all forms of communication around the world.”
On Wednesday of this week the Young Professional organization made a call for policy makers to revisit regulations that govern telecommunications service providers, with a view of implementing measures that strengthen the ability of the general public to manage their data usage.
“Many Jamaicans who own smartphones without data packages fall victim to the outrageously high data charges that are imposed by local service providers. They often have no explanation about why their telephone credit vanished into thin air and are left with little or no recourse. The situation is further exacerbated when Jamaicans roam on data abroad. ” said G2K Vice President Edson Carr.
Generation 2000 is calling on the Office of Utilities Regulation to further investigate the rates that local telecommunication companies charge for local and international roaming data, and to rein in providers whose rates deviate significantly from international averages.
