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Telecommunications provider LIME is promising residential customers significant improvements in Internet speeds within four months or so, but remains mum on the details.

“In a few months from now, LIME will launch what we call Quantum. Quantum, as the word depicts, is really a leap in technology, so you would find that you have a significant leap in the type of speeds that we currently offer in St. Vincent and the Grenadines,” Leslie Jack, general manager of LIME said at a press briefing this week.

“We will not make any announcement during the next few months, in terms of what speeds we will offer,” Jack further said, adding that the public will be invited to make suggestions via social media.

“So we are asking you to suggest three speeds: the minimum, the medium and the highest speed and that’s really for you, our residential customers,” he said, adding that LIME would have more direct discussions with business customers.

“So, we do have some ideas in terms of what we would like to launch in market as far as Quantum is concerned, but we would engage our customers…”

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Jack said that if any customer is able “to identify or come up with the suggested speed that we will accept”, LIME will offer that one customer broadband service free for an entire year.

He further said that the company give will free Internet for four months to any Karib Cable customer who switches to LIME in anticipation of the launch of Quantum.

“We are expecting that our quantum service will be launched in at least the next four months,” he said.

Asked why the company was taking such an approach and if it did not already know the cost of providing the service and could price it accordingly, Jack said:

“The cost, really, is no issue. We have already made some improvements in terms of the cost associated with the current services that are available to us. For example, we have moved our 2 megs service. Initially, our 2-megs service was $171. It is now $99; our 3-megs service was initially $286, it is now $129. So, we have really brought the prices down significantly and much in line with the expectation of the general international standards in terms of delivering higher speed for lower prices,” he said in relation to the cuts in August this year.

“One of the things that we will like to do is to have a little bit more customer engagement, particularly on the speeds they think we should be offering in the market,” Jack further said.

The announcement by LIME comes even as changes are being made at Karib Cable after its acquisition earlier this year by Columbus International Inc., a telecommunications company based in Barbados,

Asked if LIME is trying to entice customers even as it retains the luxury of waiting to see what the competition would offer, Jack said:

“Perhaps; yes and no. The thing is, this has been part of our plan long before.”

He said that over the past year, LIME has been doing quite a bit of work to deliver better speeds to its customers.

“One of the first things we did was to ensure there is greater stability in the service we provide throughout St. Vincent and the Grenadines.”

Jack said LIME was hoping to launch Quantum much sooner but was delayed by the late arrival of equipment.

“But those things are out of the way now and we do have a general timeframe in which we will be launching Quantum. But we want to use the opportunity to get a little bit more customer engagement in terms of the general package that we should be offering,” he said.

The media briefing also saw the launch of LIME’ 2013-14 directory, which has on the front cover a Kingsley Roberts photo of two women catching tri-tri at the Mt Young River.

4 replies on “LIME promises ‘Quantum’ leap in Internet speeds”

  1. Come on Lime Vincentians need 5Mbps for a cheap price. These days 5Mbps is the minimum that is needed in a household of student with multimedia usage.

  2. The problem has always been delivering the speeds we have paid for, the speeds have always been less than claimed.

    If I buy a 5lb bag of potatoes and only got 4lb in the bag it would be deemed theft or something similar, they can deliver short and your told all bandwidths world wide never come up to what’s stated. So why not state a lower bandwidth to start with.

    Lets keep an open mind and monitor if we are being ripped off when the new technology kicks in.

  3. Peter I am in agreement with you. So many times I’m unable to get half of the speed listed for my package. It can be quite frustrating. In this period of high speed internet, I sometimes feel like I’m back on a dial up connection. The basic package in Barbados is so much faster for the same ballpark price. I really hope this new package will bring much faster and more reliable service while maintaining similar fees per package.

  4. Why don’t they keep it roughly in line with the packages offered on other islands such as Barbados? :

    Quantum Surfer – 6Mbps
    Quantum Play – 20Mbps
    Quantum Plus – 60Mbps
    Quantum Power – 105Mbps

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