The territory’s telecommunications regulator has fined CCT Global Communications $50,000 for allegedly using the public spectrum without permission in March and April. But the company has responded that it used the spectrum with the regulator’s knowledge in order to test recently installed equipment.
The Telecommunications Regulatory Commission stated in a press release on May 14 that the phone company was fined for allegedly violating the Telecommunications Act, 2006.
The act gives the TRC exclusive authority to manage the public airwaves, licensing portions of the spectrum to telecommunications operators as it sees fit.
According to the TRC, the company didn’t have authority to use the 700-megahertz portion of the spectrum, which is used to allow for faster phone service such as 4G LTE.
“After receiving a complaint from another licence holder and carrying out its own tests on the identified spectrum, the TRC questioned CCT over its alleged use of the 700MHz band. Whilst CCT’s responses to the TRC’s written inquiries were initially unsatisfactory, CCT subsequently admitted its use of the 700MHz spectrum during February and March of 2014,” the release stated.
But Averad Penn, CCT’s CEO, said in an interview yesterday that the company was merely testing its 4G LTE towers, which it recently installed.
“From our perspective, CCT didn’t do anything underhanded,” he said. “We’ve been very upfront about what we intended to do. We’d given the TRC literally a list of all the equipment that we wanted to buy, told them what we wanted to do. There’s never been an objection raised.”
See the May 22, 2014 edition for full coverage.
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