ABSTRACT
Before one can appreciate the ways low-income Jamaicans have integrated the cell phone into their lives, one first needs to provide an understanding of how Jamaicans came to have these phones in the first place. This chapter discusses the economic and political debates about trade liberalization, the role of the state and the relationship between monopolies and regulation, with clear conclusions as to how the Jamaican evidence bears on the general discussion of liberalization in the telecoms sector. Cable and Wireless company hoped that investment in philanthropy would become the explicit and recognized arm of what they felt was an unappreciated investment in the country's infrastructure. Cable and Wireless company aggressively marketed their cell phones and hugely expanded their distribution, but without the supportive infrastructure their reception and reliability became notoriously poor, which ultimately helped Digicel achieve its reputation for higher quality.
