A plan to de­liv­er in­ter­net con­nec­tions to low-in­come Caribbean house­holds has been un­veiled as part of a pri­vate-pub­lic part­ner­ship be­tween lead­ing tele­coms op­er­a­tor C&W Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and some Caribbean coun­tries.

Called JUMP, the ini­tia­tive aims to help bridge the dig­i­tal di­vide and fos­ter greater dig­i­tal in­clu­sion in a re­gion that still has less than 65 per cent broad­band pen­e­tra­tion with 27 mil­lion users from a to­tal com­bined pop­u­la­tion of 44 mil­lion, C&W Com­mu­ni­ca­tions said in a state­ment.

In part­ner­ship with lo­cal gov­ern­ments, the com­pa­ny, which is the op­er­a­tor of Flow, Flow Busi­ness, C&W Busi­ness and BTC, will pro­vide qual­i­fy­ing house­holds with a sub­sidised high-speed in­ter­net con­nec­tion, a free lap­top com­put­er and rel­e­vant train­ing for in­di­vid­u­als and fam­i­lies.

So far, C&W Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and the gov­ern­ments of Bar­ba­dos, Grena­da, Ja­maica, St Lu­cia, and The Ba­hamas have com­mit­ted to JUMP and more than 2,700 house­holds have al­ready been con­nect­ed.

“There is a widen­ing gap be­tween those who have ac­cess to on­line op­por­tu­ni­ties and those who do not. So JUMP has been cre­at­ed to en­sure the ben­e­fits of dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies are avail­able to as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble. It is here to help trans­form lives and em­pow­er pre­vi­ous­ly un­der­served com­mu­ni­ties,” Inge Smidts, chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer, C&W Com­mu­ni­ca­tions added.

Smidts added that in the Caribbean, some of the bar­ri­ers to in­ter­net use and adop­tion in­clude gen­er­al lack of aware­ness, af­ford­abil­i­ty, the ab­sence of dig­i­tal skills, and in­ad­e­quate in­fra­struc­ture. JUMP aims to ad­dress all these is­sues in a com­pre­hen­sive way, and the com­pa­ny said it is proud to de­liv­er this ini­tia­tive that will have an im­me­di­ate im­pact in the com­mu­ni­ties we serve.

“There is a role for each of us to play, and we are op­ti­mistic that JUMP will pro­vide an op­por­tu­ni­ty for every­one to bring their en­er­gy, com­mit­ment and col­lab­o­ra­tion on the mis­sion of up­lift­ing our re­gion.”

Ac­cord­ing to the C&W CEO, the aim is to elim­i­nate bar­ri­ers and to en­sure that every in­di­vid­ual and fam­i­ly, de­spite their fi­nan­cial sit­u­a­tion, can ben­e­fit from the dig­i­tal world.

“We firm­ly be­lieve that con­nec­tiv­i­ty is not a lux­u­ry; it is a fun­da­men­tal right that should be ac­ces­si­ble to all, and we plan to con­nect 1,000 house­holds in Bar­ba­dos be­fore the end of the year.

“We be­lieve this in­vest­ment will change lives, un­lock the po­ten­tial of economies, and tru­ly en­able progress. Our core so­cial mis­sion is to con­nect every­one to the dig­i­tal world, re­gard­less of their in­come or where they live, and we are com­mit­ted to har­ness­ing our re­sources and ca­pa­bil­i­ties to nar­row the dig­i­tal di­vide,” she said.

In 2016, Lib­er­ty Glob­al com­plet­ed the ac­qui­si­tion of Ca­ble & Wire­less Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Plc, in a deal said to have an en­ter­prise val­ue of US$7.4 bil­lion.

As a re­sult of the trans­ac­tion, CWC busi­ness­es fall un­der the LILAC Group, which en­cap­su­lates Lib­er­ty’s op­er­a­tions in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean.