It's been a busy year-end for Cable & Wireless Communications (C&WC), which in the month of December announced an agreement with the Bahamas government to acquire a 51% stake in state owned Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) for US$210mn and also launched its first mobile TV service in Jamaica.

The announcements mark a positive note to what has been a difficult year for the operator which in the first half of its fiscal year saw revenues in the Caribbean drop 6% and Ebitda fall 13% in an environment where GDP is flat.

The benefits for C&WC are obvious, adding an extra market and in optimum conditions. C&WC is inheriting a state monopoly, which enjoys 90% of the fixed and 100% of the mobile telephony market and 35% of broadband.

The Bahamas is one of the more wealthy Caribbean countries with a per capita GDP of US$20,000 helped by the high-end US tourism market.

The consumer will benefit from having a company multinational company at the helm that is upgrading to 3G infrastructure and which will help evolve the market from voice centric services to data.

In the long term additional players will pressure prices downwards but that may not be seen for a while. The deal includes a three-year exclusivity period in the mobile space, with only one new competitor entering in the next five years.

The most immediate focus and concern is on inevitable redundancies that will come with the move from a public to a private owner, which unions fear could be as high as 30%.

As regards mobile TV, the launch is one of the first of its kind in Latin America and demonstrates C&WC's commitment to really take the fight to Digicel and introduce innovative new services which in the end benefit the consumer.

However Digicel shows no sign of slowing up.

The operator took the prize for "Best operator in a developing market" at the World Communications Awards 2010. The focus of Digicel's entry was its work in bringing mobile services to Haiti before the January 12 earthquake and its work to rebuild the country in wake of the devastation. In November in conjunction with Scotiabank, Digicel launched a mobile money service in Haiti.

And showing continued investor confidence, Digicel Limited (DL), a wholly owned subsidiary of Digicel Group Limited, completed a private placement of US$300mn.

If one award was not enough, Digicel's chairman and founder Denis O'Brien received the Jamaica Observer business leader foreign investor award.

In other developments in the last month:

Dominican Republic mobile startup Earthcom, a sister company of O2 Secure Wireless, announced it is to launch operations in the second quarter of 2011 targeting customers in areas with less telecoms coverage and with low cost plans. The company plans to offer data plans in Q3 or Q4.

Mobile banking may well be the next big thing in the Caribbean and Jamaica could be one of the markets with most potential for that.

Figures from the World Bank Group's International Finance Corporation (IFC) show Jamaica's comparatively low penetration of banking services - 21% in March 2008 - and over 100% mobile phone penetration make the country a ripe market for mobile banking.

Indeed, the country’s finance minister Audley Shaw said mobile banking could be a way to get around Jamaica's high banking fees and charges.

Canada's Scotiabank is putting a lot of energy behind mobile banking offerings along with the likes of Barbados-based FirstCaribbean International Bank (FCIB).

Scotiabank has decided not to go the SMS route because of booming popularity in data plans combined with security concerns over SMS. Scotiabank uses a mobile banking platform which covers balance queries, account information, fund transfers, credit card payments and bill payments.

In infrastructure news, the US Virgin Islands Public Finance Authority (VIPFA) said it is close to beginning work on its planned 300-mile (483km) fiber optic network for high speed broadband. The draft environmental assessment is due to be completed in January.

Guyana's government signed a US$35mn contract with Chinese firm Huawei to build a WiMax network across the country as part of an e-governance drive.

And during a visit to Guyana, Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva reaffirmed his government's plan to connect to Guyana via a fiber-optic cable that will link up with a 1,240km submarine cable system (SG-SCS) being built between Suriname and Guyana.

A project to deploy a 1,800km submarine cable between Venezuela and Cuba and then link up Jamaica has received full approval, allowing installation to go ahead in late January and be completed by mid-2011 as planned. Alcatel-Lucent is the company in charge of deployment.

Pushing development of ICT within the Caribbean the Cuban institute of higher education Instituto Politecnico Jose Antonio Echeverria (Ispjae) inaugurated a new laboratory to investigate microwave radio frequency communications for mobile and satellite communications.

And the Dominican Republic inaugurated mobile phone operator Orange Dominicana's R&D Skill Center that will focus on training local talent, driving business innovation as well as developing mobile applications particularly for the BlackBerry smartphone.

The World Bank has proposed a program which will provide support for ICT initiatives within the Caribbean Forum of African Caribbean and Pacific States (Cariforum).

The project, named the Caribbean Regional Communications Infrastructure Program (Carcip), aims to improve broadband networks, encourage the local IT industry and boost government ICT use.

In regulatory news, the Eastern Caribbean Telecommunications Authority (Ectel) is running a series of public consultations on a new draft electronic communications bill in all Ectel member states over the next few months.

And Jamaica's government has drafted legislation for establishing a Mandatory Registration of Subscriber Information (MRSI) framework, which would require Jamaica's three mobile phone operators to provide data on request.

The Dominican Republic will host the Latin American regulators' association Regulatel plenary meeting on December 13-14 this year.

And in general news, Canto has a new member, US telecoms equipment repair company Telmar Network Technology. In Latin America, Telmar operates in Brazil, Argentina and Mexico providing multi-vendor repair, spare parts management, logistics and warehousing plus professional services for wireless carriers.