When Paradise Mobile opened a wait-list for its new mobile phone service, more than a thousand people put their name down.

Chief revenue officer Brett Corday was shocked. They had not even unleashed the full promotional blitz.

“Bermudians can be hard to impress,” Brett Corday said. “I was expecting maybe a couple hundred people to sign up.”

People were drawn by Paradise Mobile’s promises of plans with unlimited calling, roaming, no contracts and no overages.

“The customer gets really excited when they hear that we are collaborative, we are transparent and we mean what we say,” Mr Corday said.

The firm has its official beta launch on Friday with a party and giveaways at the Front Yard in Hamilton from noon to 2pm.

Early adopters can try Paradise Mobile out without cancelling their contract with other providers.

“We are not charging customers, right now,” Mr Corday said.

When they do start charging, they will offer introductory packages starting at $99 a month that come with unlimited short message service, data and long-distance calling anywhere in the world.

“We are also not going to ding customers for the regulatory fee,” Mr Corday said.

Paradise Mobile focus groups have found that many people in Bermuda feel they are being charged a lot of money by their provider and do not know what they get in return.

“Because there are no other alternatives, they are stuck,” Mr Corday said. “They say I'll just take this one [provider] or that one, because neither seem better than the other.”

He said people have been signing up for years of contracted service because there is no alternative, until now.

Mr Corday, who has worked for the competitors, called Paradise Mobile “a breath of fresh air”.

“We are putting the consumer first,” he said.

The catch is that, for now, their service is only for people with recent iPhones, such as iPhone 13, 14, 15 and SE.

“Because we are a brand-new network, we are on 5G primarily, and we are also on 4G LTE, which limits the type of phone we can have on the network,” Mr Corday said.

He said those without the right phone can either wait until Paradise Mobile is ready to take them on, or they can take advantage of an agreement the firm has made with AF Smith and buy a new phone.

“They will give customers special Paradise pricing on all handsets,” Mr Corday said. “They will also be offering three or six-month payment plans on those.”

When Bermuda started discussing 5G technology three years ago, one of the criticisms was that there would need to be many more towers to accommodate it.

Mr Corday said 5G technology has since evolved.

“We are able to do a lot more with a lot less,” he said.

He said they have 75 per cent fewer cell towers than their competition.

“We have got our Phase 1 towers up and running,” he said. “We have got another Phase 2 of towers that are coming to the island. If we need it, we will have a Phase 3.”

However, he said with their current tower footprint they have 95 to 97 per cent coverage of the island with 5G.

They hope to launch a similar service in the Cayman Islands next year.

“We have ambitions to be across the Caribbean, with Bermuda as the headquarters,” he said.