Jamaica’s newest player Rock Mobile is reportedly on track to complete deployment of its 700MHz network by the end of this month.
Comments to this effect were made by Minister of Science, Energy and Technology Daryl Vaz in a Standing Finance Committee meeting of Jamaica’s parliament, and reported by local news outlet Irie FM. Rock Mobile was granted additional time to deploy its network due to the pandemic, as well as ongoing complications with its supply chain.
TeleGeography reports that Rock mobile was awarded Jamaica’s third mobile licence in May 2021, with the obligation to launch commercial services within a year of receiving the permit and to be “fully operational” after another year.
In January 2022 Rock tapped Nokia to build out its LTE-based fixed wireless access (FWA) network, but noted that it would not reach 95% population coverage until 2025. However, the operator now claims that its Rock Connect service will launch by “mid-to-late 2023”. The broadband service is aimed at areas where fibre is inaccessible, and is lining up a B2B offering from “early 2024”.
