The Balearic islandshave become one of the juicest markets for new telephone operators installing their systems. All operators generally start their activities in the large tourist centres. The Balearics is a tourist epicentre par excellence, offering all the necessary ingredients for a commenrcial activity like telecommunications to set up its antennae. This community is characterized by its commercial dynamism and by being receptive to almost all the technological innovations appearing at the moment.
The telephone operator Teleconnect is consolidating its expansion policy in national territory and so has recently inaugurated its corporate headquarters in Palma de Mallorca, in a event signalling the official start of its activities as a telecommunications service supplier of voice and Internet to the whole Balearic Island autonomous community.
The company began operations in July last year in the area of the Costa del Sol, specializing in the Spanish coastal areas. This operator offers a wide range of telecommunications services both for the residential and the business market, always within these geographic areas.
Teleconnect offers the residents of the islands the possibility of enjoying a new operator constituting a real alternative to Telefonica, given that among the services they offer are those of land-based lines with the most competitive international and inter-provincial rates, Internet connection and alternative payment methods.
Nicholas Bruemmer, Teleconnect´s CEO, explained that "up top the present we have been providing services that are not covered by any other operator in these geographic areas (Costa del Sol and Balearics). Our offer is based on quality, professionalism and on the most competitive rates in landline telephones, combined with professional internet services directed at the small and medium-sized enterprise".
The Balearics are the second community chosen by Teleconnnect to deploy and expand their telecommunications service network, after starting their activities nine month ago in the geographical area of the Costa del Sol. Within its development plan, the company aims to continue its development by expanding its presence into other Spanish coastal areas. The areas choosen are the Costa Brava, the Costa Blanca and the Canaries, places with a high concentration of foreigh public and an extremely significant tourist component.
In order to carry out this growth plan the company plans to invest around 3,600 million pesetas in the next 3 years. On this point Nicholas Bruemmer indicated that "we have made an important step in our global explansion plan, since our objective is to become, by the year 2003, the third-largest national operator within the geographic areas in which we are based".
The operator Teleconnect is the first telephone operator specialized in the Balearic Island and the Spanish Island. Its invoicing over the last financial year was 500 million pesetas. At the moment they have branch offices in Marbella, Málaga, Madrid and Palma de Mallorca and provide employment for more than 80 people. The forecast is that tgis employee number will increase in coming years. The operator plans to expand its presence in Alicante and the Canaries in the current year, invoicing forecast for this period being 4,000 million pesetas.
Teleconnect offers two types of additional services that are offered separately but can also be combined into mixed packages of voice and Internet. The two most significant activity areas the voice services with indirect post-paid access, the Casa (Home) rate, the Iberica rate and The mundo rate.
Meanwhile, the operator offers the so named prepaid products and service, based fundamentally on what it has called Gotel, on the telephone cards Fortune and t-Card and also on Internet access.
Teleconnect is an operator that in its short life has been extremely successful among its customers due to the queality of its service as well as the reduced cost of the same. NOw it has turned its gaze on the Balearics since it has seen the commercial dynamism of the latter.