TelEm: Digging itself out of a hole, Speed, Starlink and FLOW

(𝘕𝘰𝘵𝘦: 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘵 2 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸 𝘐 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘛𝘦𝘭𝘌𝘮 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘮 𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘔𝘳. 𝘙𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘏𝘢𝘵𝘰, 𝘊𝘩𝘪𝘦𝘧 𝘍𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘖𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘳, (𝘊𝘍𝘖) 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘈𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘊𝘩𝘪𝘦𝘧 𝘌𝘹𝘦𝘤𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘖𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘳, (𝘊𝘌𝘖). 𝘏𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘔𝘳. 𝘖𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘯, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘐𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘮 𝘛𝘦𝘤𝘩𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘋𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘰𝘳, 𝘔𝘴. 𝘔𝘪𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘦 𝘋𝘫𝘰𝘫𝘰𝘥𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘥𝘫𝘰, 𝘋𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘰𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘗𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘊𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘔𝘳. 𝘈𝘥𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘯 𝘓𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘢 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘨𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨.)

By Fabian Badejo

𝐂𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐝 𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐞𝐝

Poor service has been the bane of TelEm for a long time. Dissatisfied customers have been finding alternatives, migrating to other companies for faster speed, better coverage and stable connectivity. Nobody knows this better than those who are currently at the helm of affairs of the company. While the poor service image has made the company rather unpopular, the picture has improved significantly. At least that is the TelEm side of the story.

“Irma had a significant impact on TelEm,” Mr. Rondal Hato, CFO and Acting CEO of the company began. It was not an attempt to blame it all on the hurricane, but rather to put the matter in a proper historical perspective.

“After Irma, TelEm installed a second-hand Nokia mobile network,” he said. “We embarked on the transformation of the network starting primarily with the roll out of the fiber (optics). For people to understand what fiber is, I like to compare it with a pipe.

He explained: “Imagine you have a situation that you have a low water pressure, so not a lot of water is coming through your pipe. You change the pipe to a bigger pipe but you don’t do anything with the pressure. Still not much more water will come through the bigger pipe.

“In telecom, that means that we have to do something on the ISP Core. We just finished that project last December (2024). We did some tweaking in 2025. If you’re using TelEm’s fixed network broadband you must have noticed a significant improvement in speed.

“We’ve just upgraded everybody to a high speed and people who are not experiencing this high speed it’s most of the times due to the equipment that they have within their premises. When such clients call us, we send a technician to them and most of the time, those problems are fixed.

𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐎𝐨𝐤𝐥𝐚 𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐓𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐀𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝

If nobody believes those improvements are real, TelEm has an award to show for it. Hato disclosed that the company recently bagged a prestigious award for speed.

“In fact, we’ve just been awarded the fastest fixed network by Ookla – a provider of speed test. They came and conducted tests and found that TelEm has the most improved fixed network speed. They give this award per half year, so for the first half of 2025, we’ve been awarded with the fastest speed network. In that regard, I think that our service has significantly improved.”

Ookla, according to a search online, is a company that specializes in providing internet testing and network diagnostic applications, data, and analysis. They are the creators of the popular "Speedtest" app and website.

Despite TelEm’s achievement of faster speed, Hato agrees that not all customers experience the improvement.

“We still hear about some issues,” he said, “but I think those are minor. Most of the times, when we get customers calling us we can fix that pretty quickly. Usually, it comes down to either the fiber being dirty or the connection being loose, or not being properly done, but I would say that on the scheme of things, I think the service of the fixed broadband has significantly improved.”

TelEm obviously cherishes the Ookla Award it received for the first half of 2025. It is proof positive that it now provides faster speed that places it on par with, if not even ahead, of its competitors.

In the opinion of Adrian Lista, of the Marketing Department, the Ookla Award is “the fruit of the initiatives the company has taken so far. He said the award is from an “independent, third-party company that collected real world samples.”

“The award is driven by data and to win it is a testament to the improvement TelEm has made. It’s the largest jump in speed upgrade to customers that Ookla has ever recorded. This is only possible due to the work on the back end. In some cases, we’re giving three times the speed we were giving previously, all of that keeping costs the same,” Lista said.

He added: “We’re offering one of the most attractive packages, with speeds of up to 250mbs down(load) and 100mbs upload speeds and to get that award is a good reflection of the reality. In the event customers might still have issues with the Wi-Fi, moving forward, what we want to do is also improve that, not just by installing the fiber (optics) but to provide a better experience for customers. We’re delivering the speed to your homes, now we want to make sure you actually experience it.

𝐖𝐞’𝐫𝐞 𝟓𝐆 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲

“When it comes to mobile,” Hato explained, “we have a very old equipment that was out of support, and out of production, so we couldn’t do much, but lately we started with the network migration program and just recently in May/June we migrated what we call the mobile core for both the 3G (the system we use for voice) and 4G. We migrated that and I think since then people should have experienced a significant improvement.

“What we also did,” he added, “we realigned the 37 base stations that we have so the coverage has improved. The next phase is to replace the radios. Basically, given the equipment that we have now, the service is as best as it can be and to further improve the network, we need to replace the radios.

The CORE, he further explained can be likened to the heart of the mobile. “It’s 5G ready. TelEm is ready for 5G but we can only launch the 5G when we replace the radios.”

Mr. Offerman, the interim Technical Director, backed up that assertion. “TelEm now has the building blocks to move towards the new modern technology, the 5G and all those nice features that others are enjoying,” he chimed in. “By next year, TelEm will be telling customers of St. Maarten, ‘you’ll be enjoying these, too.’ But we need to have the radios in place. That is the main bottleneck we have right now.”

Still not getting the faster speed? Offerman offered this possible explanation. “Most people,” he said, “have a problem with their inhouse Wi-Fi and then they say TelEm internet is bad, but it has to do with their Wi-Fi. So we are implementing now a new Wi-Fi device where we can see remotely the customer experience and that will enhance the service too. Because, (right now) they’ve got higher speeds but they’re using an old Wi-Fi device to connect to the 2.4gigs, so even if you have a 100/200 megabits, you will only get 75 on your phone. But by changing to Wi-Fi 5.6 gigs, then you’ll reach to the 100/200 megabits.”

Offerman believes educating the customer is very important in this regard.

“We’ve had instances where some customers, in a particular case, a restaurant, complained that TelEm was not working and they were planning to go to Starlink. Then we sent one of our technicians to check the situation and found out that they were not using the Wi-Fi correctly. When they changed it from 2.4 to 5.6, immediately they got a better performance and of course, they were happy. It was just a matter that they didn’t know they could have simply switched from 2.4 to 5. The 5 appears there too, with the same password. Just select it and you will see an improvement in the speed.”

“Again,” Offerman stressed, “it boils down to education. If you have a big house, it’s not just about buying the device and putting it there. You need to have someone with the knowledge to wire it up properly. Some of the devices may be wireless but you will still need to wire them because if your house is big, you cannot get the same signals through the walls.

Mr. Hato had a word of advice for those customers who may still be in the dark about what to do to access the faster internet speed. “If you’re in a fiber optic connected area, I encourage you to do a speed test and if you’re not getting a higher speed, let us know and we’ll send a technician to help fix the problem. We will solve the problem so that you can experience all we’ve been talking about.”

𝐅𝐢𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝐎𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬 𝐂𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐞

Another common complaint customers have expressed is the lack of coverage in certain areas of the island. Mr. Hato said at the moment, “around 11,000 homes are actually connected” to the fiber optics cable. This number is different from the number of homes that are “within the reach of the fiber.” He said the company’s focus will now be increasing the number of homes that are actually connected.

“I know for sure we don’t have island-wide coverage,” Hato conceded. “To compensate for that, we are about to prepare the launch of a fixed fiber access, a technology that will give our customers the same experience that you can get from fiber but through a wireless system that is quicker to deploy, because digging is expensive and time-consuming.

“We’re working on that now,” he disclosed, “and hopefully by mid next quarter, we can have island-wide broad band coverage. But at the moment, we don’t.

“For example,” he continued, “there are some areas like Belvedere, Middle Region, Sucker Garden, and Dutch Quarter where we don’t have fiber. We try to keep our customers in those areas happy with the technology called “Connect Me,” but we’re working on offering them fixed wireless access soon so that they too can experience the speed that other customers in the fiber areas already have.”

The handicap for the company remains financing.

“The most challenging issue we have is the funding, but we’re targeting to get the radios on St. Maarten in September. I would say by October, latest November they should be operational.

𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊, 𝐅𝐋𝐎𝐖 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧:

The challenges TelEm has been facing opened up windows of opportunity for its competitors to take advantage of. Hato was very willing to talk about the issue.

“Starlink came in at a time when TelEm was vulnerable,” he said. “Our fixed network was not fixed and so they gained some traction, and also in the areas where we still don’t have fiber. So, the people that can afford it, obviously got that.

“But it’s an expensive system, and all the money goes out of St. Maarten. I think the impact they have had on us is there, but I think once we have fixed wireless increased, I think we can correct that.

His optimism about TelEm recapturing those customers who have gone to Starlink is based on an analogy he made with the situation in Holland.

“If you look in comparison at how Starlink is performing in the Netherlands, where they have a significant fiber roll out, you can see that Starlink is not gaining any traction. Actually, hardly anybody has Starlink in the Netherlands. That is an indication that if you give good service as a local operator, I think eventually you will get all the people that went to Starlink back.”

According to Hato, Starlink has the disadvantage that should anything happen, like the threat of a hurricane, “you need to take the system down because it is not hurricane-proof and what we are coming with will be hurricane-proof.”

“So,” he added, “I think we’ll be able to deal with that eventually. Right now, we’re like at a crossroads.”

Turning his attention to FLOW, Hato said “that’s a bit more complicated.”

“We, TelEm, are the only operator with a local license and we pay for that local concession. FLOW basically is rolling out fiber, putting up a local network, without a concession and we think this is unfair.

He said TelEm has addressed that issue with the regulator (BTP). “They seem to have a different interpretation of the license but we disagree with that.”

“For example,” he explained, “if you have a freight order company (and there are many of them on St. Maarten), that does not give you the right to set up your own airport because you need an airport to get the freight.”

“FLOW is allowed to provide internet but that doesn’t mean that they are allowed to set up the network to provide the internet,” he argued. “That’s not how the concession works. So, we are challenging that.

“I come from FLOW, I used to be with FLOW. If you go through the red light ten times and you’re not caught, it doesn’t make it legal. That I think is a major challenge and an unfair challenge because TelEm having this concession has the obligation - which we take very seriously - to provide connectivity across the island. Our competitor is cherry picking. They’re going into areas where they have their base stations. They do not have universal service provision and I think that is unfair and we’re addressing that with the minister and BTP to correct it,” he said, stressing that what TelEm wants is a level playing field.

(𝘐𝘯 𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘵 3, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘧𝘧 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘨𝘦𝘥 “𝘥𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘭𝘦” 𝘢𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘛𝘦𝘭𝘌𝘮 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘳𝘴.)

Photo caption: CEO of TelEm Randell Hato.

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