Comments on: Snapshot: State of telecoms in the Caribbean region

By: kamutula

kamutula — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 04:31:23 +0000

It would be interesting to see a comparison between household and business uptake of both mobile and landphone subscription.

I mention because, I would expect businesses would invariably take up both in same proportion. Households, on the other hand, would be consistent with the findings. If this be the case then, the findings thus shown could well be skewed by business subscribers.

By: Joseph

Joseph — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 19:59:16 +0000

Thank you for a well organised blog. I would like to suggest that one of the issues which exist in the Caribbean Internet Infrastructure industry is the constant talk of fixed broadband.

I would agree that the future of internet connectivity rests on mobile devices and mobile phones. However I would expect a minimum of 1meg download speed.

Also, given the proliferation of mobile subscribers in the region, the adoption of business models to take advantage of this would seem to be very thin on the ground if we were to compare the region to Africa.

BTW, would you be aware of any country by country internet infrastructure data? I would also like to know if there are any digital literacy figures on a country by country basis with a definition of the same.

By: mmarius

mmarius — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 15:37:42 +0000

In reply to Nigel Cassimire.

Thanks for the comment, Nigel!

Re the discrepancy of Dominica’s fixed broadband penetration, I am seeing some other figures for Dominica’s internet penetration (of which fixed broadband should be a subset) at 11% as at 2010. However, as you rightly noted, Dominica has had a longstanding (and possibly well developed) cable TV service, which could also be carrying Internet broadband. In that regard, I would hope for a bit more consistency in the data that country makes available, since the 47% (broadband) and 11% (Internet) are vastly different…

By: Nigel Cassimire

Nigel Cassimire — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 14:39:11 +0000

Great blog! The comment about Dominica’s apparent inconsistency with the fixed broadband penetration statistic did not specify whether cable TV providers were taken into account. My recall is that Dominica has longstanding cable TV services so it’s worth mentioning whether they figure into the broadband Internet acess reckoning.

By: Hallam Hope

Hallam Hope — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 19:52:06 +0000

A timely post which could lead into discussion on what the new environment of 4G will mean. I expect Barbados to have 4G competition this year and the immediate issues would be affordability, quality of broadband etc. As usual the urban areas are expected to get attention and the rural areas neglected initially. But the question is what will it mean for access to the Internet for low income citizens?

I find that researchers such as us are far ahead of the public and political directorates in terms of ICT Policy planning. Academia with Hopeton Dunn an exception also tends to be below the policy radar.

Hallam Hope
Barbados