TelEm Group

TELEM GROUP (S INT MAARTEN) “I came into the company in Feb. 2017,” says Dupersoy, “and the infrastructure was very old at the time and needed to be upgraded. This project had started just prior to my arrival. So, we signed off with an international company to provide us with a fiber-to-the-home network and it’s rolling along right now. Of course, we took a major hit when the storm came, and that delayed the project quite a bit, but it’s ramping up and we’re now starting to connect residences to the fiber.” Completion of the project is slated for the second quarter of 2020 - weather and unforeseen circumstances permitting. As for the future of telecommunications in the region, Dupersoy weighs in, saying, “What I think is going to happen in the industry in the future is we are going to move more to the smart home, smart city concept. Even the small islands aren’t going to escape the push from customers to provide the necessary bandwidth. It’s going to be quite a challenge to get all those services via the international links. We have looked into some smart home systems –Alexa, Siri, security cameras as well as the infrastructure. They are usually small contractor businesses, a team of one to five men.” Finding skilled labor in the telecom sector is not as challenging on St. Maarten as it is elsewhere. The island has a well-educated population and there is always availability for assistance with technology within, or outside, the region. One of the biggest challenges is economies of scale. Dupersoy admits, “Being a small telecom provider is very difficult in this industry because we have to buy the same equipment as Verizon and T-Mobile to provide less services to our customers – when they have a customer base in the millions and ours is a maximum of 12,000 at peak time.” Fortunately, shipping the equipment into St. Maarten is efficient and fast, so that is not a problem for TelEm. A significant work in progress will drastically change for the better the way St. Maarteners connect. The $18.5 million, fiber-to-the-home project will connect 20 to 25 thousand homes directly to the TelEm Group network with fiber. pictured Working in the server room