The Universal Service Fund (USF), the agency mandated to further Jamaica's access to information and communication tools, has raised concern that its source of funds is being threatened by voice over internet protocol (VOIP) systems.
In its 2016/17 annual report, tabled last week in Parliament, Robert Lawrence, Chairman of the Universal Service Fund, said the popularity of applications such as Skype, Whatsapp Voice, Facetime and Facebook messenger have caused a significant decline in its revenues.
The entity gets its funding from a levy on international calls terminating on local networks.
The levy is US0.03 for calls terminating on fixed lines and us$0.02 for calls terminating on mobile lines.
The USF Chairman says its revenues from the levy dipped nine per cent in the 2016/17 fiscal year.
The collections totalled J$1.37 billion, which was $136 million below the previous year’s total.
The entity says the government is well aware of the development and efforts are being made to address the situation.
Projects
Despite the challenges it is facing, the Universal Service Fund, has asserted that it is able to continue to implement projects across the island.
The entity says it approved 45 community access points across the island at an estimated cost of $196 million during the period under review.
It also says it connected an additional 47 sites, implemented 20 special projects, 16 of which have already been completed while it also continues to support the Tablets in Schools project of e-Learning Jamaica.
It is not clear if the funding challenge will affect the full introduction of tablets in schools.
The government plans to spend $8 billion over the next few years to complete the Tablets in Schools project.
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