Canto’s 26^th annual trade conference took place on July 11-14 in Curacao with a wide variety of issues on its agenda including Connect the Caribbean, competition law and regulation and 3G.

This year at the ministerial round table Canto hosted representatives from Anguilla, The Bahamas, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad & Tobago who were able to discuss the state of ICT in their respective countries.

Keynotes were delivered by Emsley Tromp, CEO of the Central Bank of the Netherlands Antilles who underscored the crucial role ICT plays for countries in recovering from economic downturn. He pointed out that institutional and economic weaknesses must be addressed to improve competitiveness and make the Caribbean more attractive for investment.

The issue of taxation was an area of concern raised by Digicel's head of telecoms public policy, Julian Wilkins. During his presentation Wilkins called on the sub-region's governments to reconsider a mobile handset tax that many are mulling as a means of bolstering economies hit by the recession.

Wilkins expressed concern that there appeared to be no consistent approach to telecoms taxation amongst the islands with existing and proposed rates varying greatly.

For example, Grenada approved a law to introduce a tax of 20% on mobile phone services, though that has not yet been implemented. Meanwhile the Cayman Islands and Turks & Caicos have existing special taxes on telecoms services of 6% and 7% of gross revenues respectively.

Wilkins said that taxing mobile telephony went against the spirit of bridging the digital divide citing McKinsey research which states that a 10% increase in mobile penetration equates to a 0.6-1.2% increase in GDP in emerging economies.

Underscoring positive trends in regulation in the region, Wilkins drew attention to the fact the Eastern Caribbean Telecommunications Authority (Ectel) eliminated in April the access deficit charge (ADC) and also praised the HIPCAR Harmonization project, which brought together members of the public and private sector to introduce a standard draft policy on universal service, interconnection and licensing.

Also in the news

-Alcatel-Lucent is to deploy a 1,800km submarine cable between Venezuela and Cuba by the close of the second quarter of 2011.

The French company will work as part of a joint venture that includes Shanghai Bell and Telecomunicaciones Gran Caribe (TGC) - a joint venture between the Venezuelan and Cuban governments.

The cable, named ALBA-1, will consist of two segments, one linking Cuba to Venezuela and the other Cuba to Jamaica.

According to Alcatel-Lucent the 640 Gbps capacity will be many times Cuba's current communications capacity that is dependent on expensive satellite and has enormous potential to help stimulate projects such as telemedicine, tele-education and others.

-Satellite solutions and services provider Globecomm won two contracts to provide wireless managed services to operators in Antigua and the Turks and Caicos Islands. Under the contracts, Globecomm will provide CDMA switching facilities for voice and data services to wireless operator subscribers and roaming partners in the islands.

-Guyana telecoms incumbent GT&T officially launched the 1,240km Suriname-Guyana Submarine Cable System (SG-SCS) linking the two countries via a fiber optic cable.

The new cable has a capacity of 1,000 times the current bandwidth provided by GT&T. Global Marine Systems Limited installed the cable.

Jamaica's utilities regulator OUR awarded the contract for a feasibility study and cost-benefit analysis on implementation options for number portability to Canadian consultancy Intelecon.

The project, which will run until September 28, has a pricetag of US$60,000, to be financed by the Inter-American Development Bank's Multilateral Investment Fund.