CABLE & Wireless isn't very popular with Internet users in the Cayman Islands after the company blocked customers from using Net2Phone to make cheap long-distance calls over the Internet. Now the islanders are close to insurrection to get their Net2Phone back.

Cable & Wireless has a sweet set-up in the Caymans. The company is the monopoly provider of telephone and Internet services on the islands.

Conflict with its customers began when users were encouraged by retailers to use Net2Phone and other Internet telephony services for their long-distance calls.

Some calls were down to ten percent of what Cable & Wireless charges, according to Cayman Net News (www.caymannetnews.com).

Net2Phone users bought `Y yp' equipment sold by a local electronics store and available on the open market in the US.

The equipment, the size of a portable telephone, has a built-in computer chip, allowing the user to hook up to the Internet and make calls.

Cable & Wireless responded to the new technology by imperiously blocking the Net2Phone and other telephony Internet sites and reminding customers that their agreement specified: "(1) You may not use, modify or adapt the Internet Service to transmit voice on our public telecommunications system or that of any foreign telecommunications provider.'' Remember the acrimony over the successful legal and political battle over Internet telephony the Bermuda Telephone Co. Ltd. (disguised as Logic Communications) waged against Cable & Wireless and TeleBermuda this year? Well the situation in Cayman is a great example of how an established company can hold back innovation because its executives want to be able to keep collecting revenues the old way in the new economy.

As a self-proclaimed consultant to Cable & Wireless (this one's for free guys), I can see that the executive is having trouble figuring out the situation -- even though they claim to love competition on a level playing field, laid out their way of course.

Well the game here is rugby, not croquet and the boundaries are moving fast.

My response to the Net2Phone challenge would have been: "Great! What's good for our customers is good for us'' and then go out and buy a Net2Phone-type company -- or better yet, get the smart people in the backroom to make one.

With two streams of revenue coming in and a neat bet on which way the new technology is going, I would be the darling of the shareholders -- and the islanders would start having me around for dinner again.

Instead Cable & Wireless has stood on its monopoly agreement with the Cayman government. The company has ended up with a lot of angry customers.

In this typical letter, from an unsigned letter to the publisher (perhaps the publisher himself), one reader brings up the spectre of Cable & Wireless being a family wrecker and economy killer.

"As we strive towards closer family bonds and unity, the family with children overseas in school, the mother, father, son or daughter working in the Cayman Islands, who wants to stay in touch with family more frequently, this block (of Net2Phone) will further prevent us from achieving that objective,'' the writer states in damning the company.

More to the point: "It is said that Bermuda is 5 years ahead of the Cayman Islands in Internet infrastructure and e-business.

"If the Cayman Islands are ranked in the top 5 in the banking industry, why were we kept back? Why are we still being held back? Why? Can someone answer, anybody? When will we start playing catch up, and when will the Cayman Islands catch up? "Is it when the next batch of kids graduate and cannot find jobs in the `white' collar market? Is it going to be when we are overrun with drugs because our youths see that as the only other viable alternative?'' Net2Phone management has of course garnered as much publicity from the controversy and has actively entered the arena as the champion of the people and local businesses.

Net2Phone representatives were described as meeting last week with Cable & Wireless "senior executives'' to thrash the matter out. "With the recent world focus on the Cayman Islands in respect of the international media's attention on this territory's change in legislation which may affect the way the Cayman Islands operate -- this move by Cable and Wireless could only add harm to the need for Cayman to diversify its economy -- particularly in the area of e-commerce -- which requires drastically reduced rates to be competitive, in comparison to what is now being paid,'' a spokesman for a Net2Phone distributor stated according to the newspaper.

As a result of the block Cable & Wireless has ended up with a petition being circulated to demand Government review the whole monopoly agreement and set up a regulatory body to oversee Cable & Wireless.

So far as I know, however, the letter writers have not yet raised the other controversial issue of whether the company should be able to regulate what content and services customers can access on the Internet.

This is an issue being fought out in other jurisdictions between freedom-of-speech groups, governments and Internet service providers (ISPs).

Most of the cases, however, revolve around authorities ordering ISPs to block content in their jurisdictions.

And even portal providers like Yahoo! have found the gun pointed at them.

Stumped by the technology a French judge was forced to order a study done to test out Yahoo Inc.'s claim that it does not have the technical ability to bar French users from on-line Nazi memorabilia sales on www.yahoo.com, it's global English portal.

Yahoo also fought the case over the court's ability to impose France's law on www.yahoo.com.

The www.yahoo.fr portal simply stopped allowing the sale of such items, which by law cannot be sold in France.

According to a Yahoo spokesman the issue is over whether the Internet should be forced back behind the borders of each country, with each country's residents only able to view their prescribed portion.

Such a result would be a real technology killer.

Tech Tattle deals with topics relating to technology. Contact Ahmed at ahmedelamin yhotmail.com or (33) 467901474.