From the Reporter.......11/05/2000


Supreme Court says no to BTL

A heated legal battle has sparked between small Belize City enterprises in
search of cheaper telephone rates and the national monopoly, Belize
Telecommunications Limited.
The first round of this ongoing battle concluded before Supreme Court
Justice George Meerabux on Monday, October 27. Meerabux turned down an
application by BTL attorneys, in which the telephone monopoly had requested
that he lift the injunction he handed down against BTL on October 4, which
prohibits BTL from blocking its subscribers' access to the Internet.

Senior attorney-at-law Denys Barrow represents Business Machines and
Solutions Limited, the small enterprise which is taking BTL to the task,
while Lois Young represents BTL.
BMS attorney Denys Barrow filed an ex parte application for an injunction
after BTL began blocking the Internet access of subscribers who had
purchased the IP Star, a device allows the user to make international
telephone calls for pennies a minute over the Internet.

After hearing both sides' legal arguments over the past two weeks, Justice
Meerabux has ruled that the injunction remain in effect, until Monday,
November 6, when it is expected that both sides will be back in court.

Barrow told Reporter that during the pending trial, both sides will present
legal arguments over the issue of the IP Star. He said that he will file a
motion asking that the injunction remain, at least until the trial is
concluded.

Barrow said that he will argue before the court that BTL's blocking of
Internet service and prohibiting the access to voice transmission on the
Internet, is an infringement of people's constitutional right to
communicate freely.

Up to press time, BTL's attorney Lois Young was unavailable for comments.
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I would like to personally thank Business Machines and Solutions, Ltd. for having the courage to persue this issue.
The people of Belize deserve better than what they are getting in terms of communication. It is high time that we move forward for the sake of our children, our country and...not to mention, our pocket books!
Thanks!
Tammy Martinez

Well said!!!

Now that the process has been started, when is someone going to file a suit to end the monopoly? some healthy competition from Sprint or MCI would drop those per minute cellular rates in a heartbeat!