Routing around Monopolies
August 20, 2002
Panama City has countles Internet Cafe's. Many of them are used for Net2Phone and NetMeeting conversations with friends and family abroad.
As Cable & Wireless still have a monopoly on trunk and foreign calls here, the clever Internet Cafe owners have managed to create a market for Net2Phone as you can see from this sign. I know Cable & Wireless took an ISP friend of mine to court about this in Jamaica a few years back, but they appear not to be doing anything about it here. This particular Internet Cafe is virtually next door to Cable & Wireless's head office.
I think the proliferation of Internet Cafe's in most of Latin America and the Caribbean is extremely important, far more than people realize up north. These places have the potential of becoming ebusiness centers for small and informal businesses down here. Anyone attempting to market internet services down here, who don't understand the importance are bound to fail.
(Currently listening to Rabanes - "Money pa' que". This is Panama's very own (and very good) super group.)
