Cable & Wireless Communications (C&WC) announcement on April 6 that it had finally signed off on its purchase of state-owned Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) would appear to spell a new chapter for the operator and the Bahamian consumer.
According to the government, C&WC, which operates in the Caribbean under the LIME brand, paid in full the US$210mn purchase price for a 51% stake and officially took management control of the company.
The government said it also received in-kind and cash completion dividends from BTC totaling US$14.3mn.
A new board has been established for BTC with Geoff Houston at the helm.
C&WC CEO Tony Rice said the company would begin the next phase of strengthening BTC by improving its network, introducing new services and moving it to a competitive cost base. C&WC will have a three year grace period before the process of liberalizing the mobile sector begins.
The news would appear to put paid to opposition to the sale from the Bahamas Communications and Public Officers Union (BCPOU), which expressed concern about BTC workforce's having to be cut by as much as 30% as well as questioning the sale price.

The move is another step for C&WC as it attempts to consolidate its position in the market. In February,
C&WC offloaded its operating unit in Bermuda to Canadian telco The Bragg Group for US$70mn.

The company said the deal was consistent with its strategy outlined after last year's demerger with Cable & Wireless, in which it aims to reshape its portfolio and develop its business around full-service telecoms operations in various core regional hubs. The Bermuda unit was not a full-service operator.

Jamaica

In other news, the Jamaican government has signed a J$543mn (US$6.4mn) contract with LIME and Columbus Communications' local triple play operator, Flow, for the build out of an island-wide high speed broadband network.
The goal of the project is to bring affordable and consistent internet access to all secondary schools, post offices and public libraries in Jamaica. The providers will be held to the agreed standard of 99.9% availability and high-speed backbone transmission of 100 Mbps.
Funding for the project will be provided by the Universal Access Fund Company Limited (UAFCL), which manages the levy charged to telecoms companies for incoming international calls to Jamaica. Additionally, UAFCL has provided some J$2.4bn for teacher education and school initiatives through an e-learning project.
Virgin Islands

The British Virgin Islands (BVI) is in the final stages of implementing the first regional interconnection exchange point (IXP) in the English-speaking Caribbean, the BVI's Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) said.
The necessary administrative and technical agreements have been drafted and agreed upon, a site selected (donated by the government IT department), equipment sourced (donations from Packet Clearing House and the TRC), and backhaul links set up from the two initial participants - LIME and CCT Global Communications. The two companies have already traded the relevant routing information and are doing the final testing.
According to the Caribbean Telecoms Union's (CTU) secretary general Bernadette Lewis, Grenada is also quite advanced in the process. The CTU has carried out 13 roadshows and IXP seminars over the last year around the Caribbean. In particular, St Vincent and the Grenadines, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, Dominica and Suriname have all demonstrated a "tremendous amount of interest."
Benefits of having a local IXP, or delivering traffic/content domestically instead of sending it through international connections, include: lowering the cost of delivering content, which could encourage telcos to invest more in other services as well as developing local content; providing backup for when international connectivity is lost; increased internet quality and speed; reducing the likelihood of illegal interception of traffic.
Also in the Virgin Islands, but the US ones, a second round of hearings on a bill for local funding of the US Virgin Islands' federally backed broadband project, senators voted to put it on hold until April 15 to make amendments to the legislation.
The bill would provide the 30% local funding requirement for the US$68mn in federal broadband grants to upgrade the Virgin Islands' internet infrastructure to a fiber optic network. It would authorize the entity in charge of the project, VI Next Generation Network, to float a bond for US$42.5mn to satisfy the requirement.
House spokesman Jean Greaux Jr has commented that the Virgin Islands has one of the poorest and most expensive communications networks in the United States.

Dominican Republic

Dominican operator Wind Telecom completed deployment of a mobile WiMax network with Samsung Electronics and is looking at developing an LTE pilot project in September this year.
The first cities to have the service will be capital Santo Domingo and Santiago, which represent 40% of Dominican households. However, the plan is to expand coverage throughout 2011 to cover 60% of the population.

Regional

The CTU has embarked on a project to advise member nations on how to modernize government ICT infrastructure and may use Trinidad and Tobago as a reference model.
CTU secretary general Bernadette Lewis said at the end of March that the organization is undertaking a three-month technical audit of the ICT infrastructure of the St Kitts and Nevis government to help it provide greater e-services and boost efficiency within the public sector.
In other regional news, certain countries in the Caribbean are implementing an advanced communications system called Common Alerting Protocols (CAP), which allows automatic, multimedia distribution of information in the case of tsunamis, earthquakes and other natural disasters.
Some 33 countries participated in a March 23 simulated tsunami alert exercise in the Caribbean, organized by Unesco.
The goal is to test an alert system called the Tsunami and other Coastal Hazards Warning System for the Caribbean and Adjacent Regions, which has been at the planning stage for more than a year, but the tsunami in Japan pushed authorities to test it now.

Antigua and Barbuda

Antigua and Barbuda's telecoms industry is expected to undergo significant changes and liberalization by the end of the year, according to the Antigua Observer.
Along with other Cariforum member states, in signing the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Europe in 2008, Antigua and Barbuda has committed to making necessary adjustments to its telecoms sector as outlined by the agreement.
One of the EPA's requirements is the creation of an independent regulatory authority that is functionally distant from the state-run telecoms provider. This would mean creating a body similar to the Eastern Caribbean Telecommunications Authority (Ectel), which oversees Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines.
Also, as of January 1, 2012, significant liberalization will be required for the twin-island nation, as the EPA agreement calls for the elimination of various protective measures.