**Regenie Fräser - Secretary General**
Caribbean Wednesday, March 12, 2008

CANTO SECRETARY GENERAL TALKS WITH BNA ON THE CONNECT THE CARIBBEAN INITIATIVE
March 12th 2008

At the 24th annual general meeting of the Caribbean Association of National Telecommunications Organizations (Canto) held in Suriname on January 27-February 1, a project common to the whole Caribbean region dominated the agenda.

Connect the Caribbean would form part of a global initiative of the World Summit on the Information Society called Connect the World. Connect Africa was launched late last year and Connect the Americas is due for launch in 2009. Being a small market, the ITU encouraged the Caribbean to get a head start in preparations and asked Canto to be in charge of coordinating the project. BNamericas talked to Canto's secretary general Regenie Fräser about the objectives and challenges of Connect the Caribbean and what it plans to achieve in preparation for 2009.

BNamericas: Could you give me a bit of background to how you decided to start looking at this initiative. Obviously it is a global initiative and it has already started in Africa. Was it just from observing that or was there any particular reason to improve communications in the Caribbean?

Fräser: The initiative came from the world summit for the information society of the ITU. The ITU decided that by 2015 all the unconnected people in the world should have some sort of ICT connection, mobile phone, computer, etc.

So the ITU has started launching a series of initiatives around the world, starting with Connect Africa, which was launched in November. They brought together all the stakeholders and people have committed more than US$55bn in Africa.

Now the ITU is going around the world and encouraging organizations such as Canto to lead their region's connectivity initiatives.

The ITU came to the Canto meeting in Barbados in July last year and asked them to take the lead in the Connect the Caribbean initiative. BNamericas: So US$55bn was committed to Africa. Do you any estimation of how much it might cost to develop the Connect the Caribbean initiative?

Fräser: We really have no idea yet. We're now working on a project framework. They don't even know what Connect Africa will cost. People have agreed to invest US$55bn in projects so far. I really don't want to make a prediction but it will require a lot of money for Connect the Caribbean. By July, at the next Canto meeting in the Bahamas, we will be clearer on what it will cost.

BNamericas: The Caribbean certainly has a certain level of infrastructure already deployed with undersea cables and such, so does that give you a head start?

Fräser: Yes but we still have areas that are sparsely populated so we have to try to reach those people also and connect them in one way or another. We are looking at one project with Nortel, the OLPC [One Laptop Per Child], they are one of the leading sponsors of the project. We have started a pilot in Suriname and will do the same in the Bahamas when we go in July. But we are looking at acting as the purchasing agent of the Caribbean for the OLPC. So Canto intends to buy hundreds of thousands of these computers and distribute them through the Caribbean in collaboration with Nortel, the operators and the governments as well.

BNamericas: Do you feel that you will be able to reach agreements with other governments on either regulatory policy or different areas that need to be addressed?

Fräser: We are very confident because we have started talking to the governments already. We have started to put together a database of all ICT projects in the Caribbean region and we are getting information directly from the ministers in charge of telecommunications. They are sending us a long list of ICT projects they have implemented, that they are implementing and that they are planning to implement. And in this database we have almost 400 projects from just six or seven ministers. The ministers are excited about the project because they have been responding to my requests to send information. Soon the database will be up on Canto's website and people will be able to go online and add their projects.

BNamericas: So once you have all those projects, what will you do with them?

Fräser: Once we have the projects we will map them out and look at what is happening in each country together with the stakeholders, service providers and ministers so that we don't duplicate the effort and then we can fill the gaps, collaborating with certain agencies on certain projects to expand them better and faster, more efficiently, instead of starting from scratch with everything. And people who are interested in contributing to projects, they can get contact information from the database.

BNamericas: So has Connect the Caribbean actually been launched? If not, when?

Fräser: The ITU will launch Connect the Americas in 2009 and Connect the Caribbean is part of that. It would be easy for the Caribbean to get lost in the Americas initiative. So we need time to prepare, to get our database of projects ready and the stakeholders, partners and sponsors interested and excited about the project.

BNamericas: Is there a launch date yet? Fräser: No, not yet. They are talking to different governments in the Americas and the Caribbean.

BNamericas: I haven't heard this initiative mentioned in South or Central America. Have you been in touch with initiatives in those regions?

Fräser: No, the initiative [organizer] hasn't even started talking about it yet. The Caribbean is leading this one. We are small and have special needs, and for that reason we have started preparing now. The ITU told me that preparations have started for Connect Asia and Connect the Pacific. I believe that will be done at the end of this year, next year Americas, and then Europe and other parts.

BNamericas: This is in line with the idea of a single Caribbean market. Is that a separate project, and how is that advancing? Fräser: The Caribbean single market and economy project will benefit greatly because it's all about connectivity. For that reason it involves Caricom [Caribbean Community], who was also present in Suriname to give their vision and what they think we should be doing.

BNamericas: What would you say you got most out of Canto's AGM towards this initiative? What did you not know before the meeting that you do know now?

Fräser: What we achieved is commitment from all the stakeholders. And those are Canto. They have committed to collaborate and make the Connect the Caribbean happen. We had high-level officials in Canto, we had the secretary general of the CTU [Caribbean Telecommunications Union] Bernadette Lewis, we had the senior policy advisor of Caricom in charge of ICT and development and we had the ITU. Those were the main stakeholders from the private sector. Then we had the three main equipment suppliers in the region: Nortel, Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson. Them giving their commitment was the most important thing that came out of this meeting.

BNamericas: So by the next meeting in July what do you hope to achieve?

Fräser: We want to have a better idea about costs, we hope to have a framework ready, we will have identified a number of projects that are going to be implemented and that have started to be implemented, and we will get the commitment of the ministers. We won't go to the summit level and heads of state yet because this is still preparation. We will invite all the ministers in the region and maybe seven or eight will come to give their commitment. Last week we presented the project to Caricom and to the CTU strategic forum and there were about seven ministers present there, so they are informed about it. We will also look at best practices projects in other countries to see if we can learn from them. Cable & Wireless already has a Connect Barbados project underway.

BNamericas: Not all of the markets in Canto are liberalized, for example, the Bahamas still has a fixed line monopoly. Are those issues that Canto could speed up, especially given that Bahamas Telecommunications Company CEO Leon Williams is the chairman of Canto? Assuming, of course, that having a monopoly in the market is not the best way to spread communications.

Fräser: A monopoly in the market will not constrain the Connect the Caribbean initiative. We have the full support of the government there and of BTC because Leon has already presented it to them. But from what I have heard, sooner rather than later the market will be liberalized.

BNamericas: Are the Guyana's involved in the project?

Fräser: Guyana and Suriname are involved at a government level; they have sent us lists of the projects they are working on. We are working with the Guyana Telecom and Telegraph Company and a pilot project has already started in Suriname. French Guyana is not a member of Canto and we have not worked closely with them yet.

BNamericas: Have you looked at financing options?

Fräser: We will go to the Inter-American Development Bank, the Caribbean Development Bank and the EU and large sponsors. The EU has actually pre-approved the project, meaning that they will look at it for financing.

BNamericas: What would be involved in the applications and services end of the project?

Fräser: That would involve developing local content for the OLPC program, programming.

BIOGRAPHY
Regenie Fräser has been Secretary General of Canto (Caribbean Association of National Telecommunication Organizations) since August 2004. She holds a Master of Arts Degree in Telecommunications from Michigan State University and has worked with Suriname incumbent Telesur holding several positions. Since at CANTO, membership has increased approximately 300%.

ABOUT THE COMPANY:
The Caribbean Association of National Telecommunication Organizations (Canto) was founded in 1985 as a nonprofit association of telephone operating companies in the Caribbean. It now has 100 members in 38 countries.

Canto's objective is to establish a forum through which operators can exchange information and expertise, influence policymaking and encourage dialogue with other like-minded organizations such as the Caribbean Community (Caricom) and the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU).

Where Canto represents the operators, the CTU is made up of government representatives and deals more with governmental telecoms policy issues among member states.