Columbus International Inc. announced that it has officially obtained approval to acquire TeleBarbados Inc. and enter the Barbados telecommunications market. With this approval, Columbus aims to introduce two services to Barbados: Flow, a consumer-focused triple-play video, broadband and voice provider, and Columbus Business Solutions, which offers business class ICT solutions.
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In addition to the acquisition of TeleBarbados, the approval includes all the requisite licenses Columbus needs to provide wholesale and retail broadband-enabled services for both businesses and consumers.
According to the company, over the past eight years, it has invested about $1 billion in its subsea and terrestrial networks, which now span 23 countries.
Brendan Paddick, CEO of Columbus Communications, said the company plans to invest U.S.$80 million over the next three years. “Together we will endeavor to make Barbados an even more enviable place in which to live and to conduct business,” he said.
TeleBarbados owns and operates a fiber rich telecommunications network in Barbados and provides advanced voice and data services to a diverse retail and corporate customer base on both a wireless and hard-wired basis. It holds a broad range of licenses issued under the Telecommunications Act of Barbados to provide such services as: domestic and international voice, backhaul bandwidth capacity, Internet exchange, managed data network, virtual private network, public Internet access and fixed wireless telecom, among others.
Columbus plans to invest heavily in Barbados over the next 24 to 36 months to offer full triple play services of broadband Internet, digital landline telephone and advanced Internet protocol-based video services under the brand name Flow. In addition, Columbus will be launching a series of corporate data, connectivity and IT services under the brand Columbus Business Solutions.
Based in Barbados, Columbus International Inc. is a privately held telecommunications company. In Trinidad, Jamaica, Grenada and Curacao, it provides digital cable television, broadband Internet, digital landline telephony under the brand name Flow and corporate data services under the brand Columbus Business Solutions. Its wholly owned subsidiary, Columbus Networks, provides capacity and IP services, corporate data solutions and data center hosting throughout 23 countries in the greater Caribbean, Central American and Andean region.
