News

Connecting People With Wireless Solutions

Jamaica Gleaner - Flair
Monday, January 26, 2004

So often, Americans fall in love with our beautiful island Jamaica, by vacationing on our shores or through embracing the unique infectious culture of the reggae land.

Yet of the many visitors who have touched our shores very few see an opportunity for investment and act upon it. One such exceptional individual is Darryl Wehmeyer who is getting Jamaica wired through wireless communication.

Wehmeyer who hails from Atlanta, Georgia, USA frequently visited the island in the late 1990s to assist friends with business projects. While staying at a couple of hotels in Kingston, he realised that there was limited access to the Internet, and that the convenience of doing so from anywhere within the hotels was only a dream. There and then, Wehmeyer got the brilliant idea of establishing a wireless land network company in Jamaica.

Four years ago Wehmeyer moved to Jamaica and founded Copia Wireless Communications Limited; a distributor, integrator and marketer of wireless networks and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) products. This, the 34-year-old entrepreneur says is the best decision he has made and intends to give Copia Caribbean recognition.

"Around the world at the various hot spots wireless programming is preferred. It is much more common now, once it was more of a novelty now it is a necessity," says Wehmeyer.

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Wireless networking refers to technology that enables two or more computers to communicate using standard network protocols, with flexible connectivity without cabling hassle.

Thus, what Copia does is provide a unique solution for hotels. They install a wireless system in hotels for guests to access the Internet at their convenience from the pool, the beach, meeting rooms, restaurants and the guest rooms. Copia also markets and installs wireless point-to-point links for companies with multiple locations. For a one-time cost of equipment and installation, a company can link two locations together which are miles apart. While also, Copia will provide training for the staff of the companies being installed with wireless network and maintains their equipment.

Copia now boasts an elite clientele such as The Hilton Kingston Hotel, Ritz-Carlton, Rose Hall Hotel, Courtleigh Hotel and Suites, Knutsford Court Hotel, the Ministry of Local Government, the Mandeville Hospital, Grace, Kennedy, First Global Bank among others.

"I want to apply the business plan in other Caribbean countries, then Latin America. Developing countries have the best opportunities for technology, there is more room to grow," he says.

Wehmeyer who studied Management at Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts decided to bring his expertise to Jamaica and establish his first company in the island, the largest English-speaking country in the Caribbean with lots of business potential, he says. "The telecommunications market was opening up and I thought it would be interesting to invest." Copia which started on March 26, 2001 in a townhouse in Norbrook, St. Andrew is now a six-room flat on the fifth floor of the Island Life Building on St. Lucia Avenue in New Kingston. With a staff complement of six persons, and two working in Montego Bay, St. James.

He states that the challenges being faced by telecommunications companies in Jamaica are similar to those being experienced in the United States. As with deregulation within countries, the experiences will be similar."Companies are forced to share its market force for clients," he says. Still, despite the challenges and competition that are attached to the wireless communications business, and the instability of the economy Wehmeyer is optimistic that Copia will survive.

He reveals that the only time he has been worried about Copia's immovability was during the aftermath of the 9/11 attack, as if there was a continued downfall in visitors to the country it would have affected the company, since he mostly works with hotels.

Copia is also the exclusive distributor in the Caribbean of Micronet products. Micronet, a Taiwan company which Copia has been in partnership with for the past three years, provides advanced technology and standard -based Wireless LAN (WLAN) products enabling computers to network wirelessly. Micronet is also a distributor of GPRS cards, which are facilitated through Copia.

Among his immediate business plans, Wehmeyer wants to increase the awareness of and accessibility to VoIP products in Jamaica. With VoIP persons can make calls from their computers through the Internet at a lower cost than when using a direct telephone line. With VoIP, it changes analog vocals (your voice) into digital data packets. These packets can then be sent over any internet protocol network. When it is received by a phone or computer they are reassembled back into analog signals.

Among these and other ideas that Wehmeyer has he says Copia is expected to achieve greatness.

"There is always new and improved mechanisms within the technological field. Always a need for wireless."