CANTO held its 27th annual conference and trade exhibition in Suriname on July 10-13 bringing together a broad range of equipment suppliers, operators and government officials and figured Hamadoun Toure, secretary general of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), as a keynote speaker.

Number portability (NP) and Connect the Caribbean were two of the central topics on the agenda.

NP is being implemented in many countries in South America and the issue has been on the agenda for the last two or three meetings of CANTO’s Regulation and Emerging Technologies Committee.

However during the meeting in Suriname it quickly became clear that there is not a general consensus among stake holders as to whether NP is worth implementing in the Caribbean.

For that reason, CANTO has decided not to take an official position on NP but rather write an informational paper on the issue for members compiling the different arguments.

Digicel's head of telecoms public policy, Julian Wilkins, argued that NP is expensive and complex to implement and that regulators should carry out a cost-benefit analysis before “just walking into it.”

Wilkins used examples of Ecuador and Peru that showed that less than 0.5% of customers actually ported their numbers in the first year of operation of the mechanism.

ECTEL believes it might make more sense to have just fixed line NP given that businesses tend to need to retain a number more than mobile consumers who increasingly communicate via social networks and email.

As regards Connect the Caribbean (CTU), work is still ongoing to ensure that the Caribbean has a separate identity from the rest of the Americas when the Connect Americas project, under which the Caribbean falls, kicks off next year.

However, CANTO has contracted a consultant to draw together all of the disparate projects being pushed by entities such as the CTU and Caricom in order to present a more united front and to avoid overlaps of projects.

Some progress has been made regarding the main areas of focus especially in establishing a regional community of content creation. CANTO announced the first winners of the i-Create content program to encourage the development of mobile applications.

Grenada and the British Virgin Islands launched regional IXPs at the end of May. And regarding the third main pillar - setting up a regional e-business marketplace - a Suriname version has already been drafted but Canto is still seeking funding.

Elsewhere in the Caribbean:

Digicel posted 27% increases in both revenues and Ebitda in the fiscal year ended March 31. Subscriber numbers rose 6% to 11.5mn across all 32 markets, data revenues surged 104% in the year.

The operator said Trinidad and Tobago was the best performing market, taking into account not only financials but the overall management of the unit.

Jamaica’s government said in mid July it was close to deciding whether to approve the asset swap between Digicel and Claro Jamaica in which, Digicel will acquire America Movil’s Claro business in Jamaica, while at the same time selling its businesses in Honduras and El Salvador to America Movil.
Meanwhile, in an interim management statement, rival Cable & Wireless Communications (C&WC) said it saw declines in mobile subscribers in its Caribbean unit during its fiscal first quarter, ended June 30, which the company attributed to reductions in prepaid usage and a difficult market situation in Jamaica.

Company CFO Tim Pennington said that first quarter performance was in line with expectations set out in May and that the decline in mobile subscribers was due to its discontinuing of certain promotional activities.

The executive said that LIME’s fortunes in Jamaica would very much depend on the outcome of OUR’s decision regarding the merger of Claro and Digicel.

While broadband subscribers were down at the end of June, broadband Arpu was up, which the company said was due to a combination of price increases and greater availability of bandwidth.

In other LIME news, the company won a EC$5.2mn (US$1.9mn), five-year contract to supply high speed wireless internet to 107 schools across St Vincent and the Grenadines. Around one-fifth of the schools involved will be receiving internet connectivity for the first time. Canada's SaskTel International will donate computers.

LIME signed a US$6.3mn contract with the Caribbean Knowledge and Learning Network (CKLN) to develop the first regional dedicated knowledge, learning and research network, C@ribNET.

C@ribNET is a broadband fiber optic network, configured to connect tertiary institutions, hospitals, schools, government agencies and Caricom institutions together.

Just months after concreting a 51% stake in Bahaman state-owned telco BTC, C&WC announced it is planning to expand BTC’s Miami submarine fiber optic cable to maximize revenues and improve connectivity in Haiti.

In 2006, BTC ran a submarine fiber optic cable to Haiti through a partnership arrangement with phone company Teleco D'Haiti.

And BTC has removed "inter-island" additional charges. While normal airtime charges still apply, mobile customers can now make calls to a fixed line or mobile in another Bahamian island without incurring an additional US$0.18 per minute "long distance" charge.

NUMBER CRUNCHING

The Caribbean will have some 350mn connected devices by 2020, Ericsson said during this year’s CANTO conference. Ericsson is the main sponsor of the i-Create Caribbean e-Content competition.

The Caribbean telecoms sector closed 2010 with a decline of 5%-46% in fixed-line telephony in most markets due to mobile substitution, according to a study by ICT Pulse comparing statistics collected by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

Intensified competition in the last 10 years in most English-speaking Caribbean countries has increased the offerings of low-cost mobile services, causing users to cancel their fixed lines.

EVENTS

The CTU, the Association for the Progress of Communications (APC), the Internet Society, the NUPEF Institute, and the Regional Internet Address Registry for Latin America and the Caribbean (Lacnic) have announced that the Fourth Regional Preparatory Meeting for the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) will take place from August 8-11 in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.

The Ibero-American association of research centers and telecommunication enterprises (Ahciet) and the Latin American telecoms regulators' association Regulatel held the XIV regulator and operator summit on July 18-19 in Dominican Republic capital Santo Domingo. Delegates discussed international connectivity, fiber optic network coverage, mobile internet and infrastructure sharing.

AWARDS

Canadian bank Scotiabank and Digicel won the 2011 Global Telecoms Business Innovation Award for Consumer Service Innovation for their TchoTcho mobile wallet service launched in Haiti.

And Digicel was named one of the main partners with the US state department to support the International diaspora Engagement Alliance (IdEA) marketplace.