Unions representing workers at Bahamas state telco BTC are set to appear in court on January 31 for a hearing aimed at blocking the sale of a 51% stake in BTC to Cable & Wireless Communications (C&WC).

Unions say the government does not have the right to sell BTC and fear the sale could lead to the laying off of 30% of the company's workforce.

The opposition progressive liberal party (PLP) has also raised concerns about voluntary workforce restructuring, changes in pension funds and says the majority stake in BTC is worth more than the US$210mn C&WC agreed to pay for the shares.

Also in Caribbean telecoms news:

Cuba

-Telecom Italia (TI) is reportedly close to selling its 27% stake in Cuban state telco Etecsa.

The Italian operator reportedly asked for US$780mn for the Etecsa stake in negotiations with Spain's Telefonica in 2009 and in its latest half-year report, TI valued its Etecsa stake at 367mn euros (US$481mn).

-France's Alcatel-Lucent has begun deploying a 1,600km underwater cable between Venezuela and Cuba that includes a link to Jamaica via a 230km segment of fiber optic cable to form the ALBA-1 system. Work is slated for completion in July this year.

Haiti

-Natcom, a joint venture between Vietnamese mobile operator Viettel and Haitian state telco Teleco, has officially launched operations by establishing long-distance calls between Haiti and Vietnam. Natcom plans to build 1,000 additional stations in 2011.

The Dominican Republic

-Dominican Republic telecoms operator Claro Codetel will invest 12.6bn pesos (US$337mn) this year, the company's president, Oscar Peña said.

Claro Codetel invested more than 9bn pesos (US$244mn) in the telecoms market during 2010 allowing it to grow its network and introduce smartphones, 3G network access, video calls, and mobile and internet TV.

Guyana

-Guyana is introducing a "One Laptop Per Family" (OLPF) program to narrow the digital divide. The OLPF program's strategy is also to encourage health and social welfare groups to become involved and explore ways they could support communities through ICT.

Regulation

European electronic communications regulators association Berec and Latin American telecoms regulators association Regulatel agreed to work together on roaming regulation during a summit held in the Dominican Republic in December.

Regulatel says it wants to evaluate whether roaming policies implemented in the EU could be used, adapted and transferred to Latin America and Caribbean.

Meanwhile, Berec believes regional governments could learn from experiences with mobile number portability in Europe.

Furthermore, the regulators agreed to improve regulatory autonomy for the telecoms sectors in their respective countries.

-The Eastern Caribbean Telecommunications Authority (Ectel) and the National Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (NTRC) hosted on January 20 a consultation to discuss a new draft bill to regulate the telecommunications and ICT sector in St Kitts and Nevis.

The  discussions  form part  of  a  series  of  consultations  in  all  member  states  of  Ectel designed to allow public participation in the formulation of  new legislation for the evolving ICT sector.

A consultation has already been held in St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Dominica is on the list for February.

-Jamaica's Telecommunications Appeals Tribunal has upheld a decision by the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) that forces mobile operator Claro to discontinue the practice of automatically diverting calls from competitor Digicel's telemarketers to the voicemail boxes of Claro customers.

- The British Virgin Islands' telecom regulatory commission, TRC, has launched an investigation into alleged anti-competitive behavior of LIME.

The investigation will follow up on allegations revolving around LIME's pricing calls and termination services to other LIME destinations in the Caribbean.

People on the move

-Telecoms operator LIME has appointed Grace Silvera as regional VP of marketing and corporate communications and Dianne Bissoon as VP of TV and entertainment services.

-Former Canto secretary general and current secretary general of the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU), Bernadette Lewis, has been shortlisted for the post of the Caribbean Community's (Caricom) secretary general, left vacant on December 31 by the retirement of Edwin Carrington.