Seven months after opening in Bermuda, telecommunications company Paradise Mobile is already expanding overseas.

Company founder and chief executive officer Sam Tabbara told The Royal Gazette it planned to set up a location in Cayman next year.

“Then we will be announcing six more markets,” Mr Tabbara said. “We are still waiting for regulatory approval but we feel very confident we will be announcing them soon.”

The Cayman operation will be similar to Bermuda in terms of technology.

“Obviously, every island has its own demographics, and its own challenges,” Mr Tabbara said. “We are not going to be copy and pasting all products and services, necessarily.”

Last week, Paradise Mobile’s Bermuda Open RAN Greenfield Network was shortlisted for a Glotel Award, organised by the website telecoms.com. They placed in the operator excellence category alongside firms such as China Mobile International and Korea Telecom.

“We did not win, but we were one of five firms chosen for nomination from hundreds of applications from around the world,” Mr Tabbara said. “It felt good to be putting Bermuda on the map.”

Mr Tabbara takes inspiration from the development of the insurance industry in Bermuda in the 1980s.

“Whenever you hear the word Bermuda now, you think of insurance,” he said. “It is inspiring to understand that 65,000 people could be world recognised for anything. Statistically, this is a small town that no one has ever heard of.”

He believes that like the insurance industry, technology will one day become a pillar of Bermuda’s economy.

“We not only think the tech industry is going to improve Bermuda’s gross domestic product, we are betting on it,” Mr Tabbara.

However, he warned that it would not happen overnight.

“This is going to be a multiyear journey,” he said.

He saw schooling as the biggest obstacle to overcome.

“Education is Bermuda’s weakest link,” he said.

He said children needed to be exposed to tech education as early as primary school.

“When they graduate from higher education, we want them to have the option to come back to Bermuda to work,” he said. “Right now, a lot of students automatically think reinsurance. That is great but we should not put all our eggs in one basket. We need to diversify. It is not about eliminating one or the other, but adding more opportunity.”

To this end, Paradise Mobile signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Education in May, to be a signature learning partner.

“It starts from school,” he said. “We are helping to build the curriculum. We are helping with internships and externships, not just with students, but also teachers.”

Mr Tabbara said it was hard to predict if many more telecommunications firms would pop up in Bermuda in the next five to ten years.

Already, advertisements for another Bermudian-based telecommunications firm B-Mobile have appeared on social media.

“The Regulatory Authority has a very stringent process on who, why and how many can set up here,” Mr Tabbara said.

“I hope there is competition, because I have never seen a situation where competition hurts. Our focus is always how can I make things better and get to the next version, even if it means cannibalising our own revenue. Stagnation is death.”