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CANTO wrap up May 2010
A UK court ruled in favor of C&Wover allegations that C&W hindered Digicel's entry into several Caribbean markets and ordered Digicel to pay C&W’s legal costs of 15.5mn pounds (US$23.8mn).
Digicel first issued the claim against C&W in 2007saying the latter had delayed interconnection in St Lucia, St Vincent & the Grenadines, Grenada, Barbados, the Cayman Islands, Trinidad & Tobago and the Turks & Caicos Islands between 2002 and 2006, leading to a loss in profits for the company of 300mn pounds.
The court called the claim was exaggerated and dismissed all claims against C&W except that in Turks & Caicos where Digicel was awarded a token 2.00 pounds for breach of a MoU.
Digicel blamed the loss of its case on "the weak regulatory frameworks in place in these Caribbean jurisdictions" and said that C&W "should be brought to book.”
In other news, Vietnam's largest mobile operator, Viettelsigned an agreement with Haitian state telco Teleco and its majority owner, the central bank of Haiti (BRH), to invest up to US$100mn to expand telecommunications services.
Viettel will provide an initial investment of US$59mn, and an additional US$40mn over four years, a deal which is one of the largest foreign direct investments in the country ever and welcome as the country recovers from the earthquake.
Even before the disaster, fixed-line penetration in Haiti reached only 1.8%, mobile penetration was 35% and internet penetration did not pass 1%.
Moving to Haiti’s neighbour, the Dominican Republic launched its first internet-based TV channel called "República Dominicana TV," through which the government broadcasts cultural, sporting and historical information. In its first week the channel received 861,618 visits.
The channel only broadcasts content produced by Dominican youth, who also manage the portal.
Staying in the DR, telecoms regulator Indotel announced seven tenders for the modernization of digital government systems. The watchdog is seeking to set up a digital archive system for the national library and to purchase further equipment for the government's community technology centers project.
Two of the tenders will modernize the digital infrastructures of the armed forces and the police department.
Moving onto Cuba, the number of mobile phone users could break the 1mn barrier by the end of 2010 and rise to 2.4mn by 2015, according to the country’s state controlled telco Etecsa. Cuba's current mobile subscribercount reportedly stands at 838,372.
The cost of activating a cell phone has fallen to around US$40, compared with US$120 when the market was first opened to individual citizens in 2008. That said, that cost is still prohibitive for many average Cubans.
In Jamaica, utilities regulator OUR is considering two requests for application (RFA) for two licenses to build, own and operate a submarine fiber optic cable carrier facility. The companies are Digicel Cable Jamaica and Northern Caribbean Fiber Jamaica.
Digicel said that operating its own fiber would provide additional capacity and redundancy for the company's existing carrier facilities. The company would also intend to use the capacity to sell on the wholesale market.
Also in Jamaica, on-net calls generated the highest mobile service revenue compared to other services, with Arpu rising to J$2,095 (US$23.66) in 2Q09 from J$1,841 in 2Q08, creating total revenue of J$9.30bn in 2Q09, according to OUR, using figures provided by telcos Digicel, LIME and Claro.
Minutes spent on on-net calls rose 32.10% over the period.
Finally, hopping to Puerto Rico, global satellite operator SES, signed an agreement with the América Móvil-owned Puerto Rico Telephone company (PRT), to provide Ku-band capacity for DTH coverage across the country.
PRT will use six transponders in the Ku band from the SES World Skies satellite AMC-21, located at 125 degrees west orbital position. The footprint of the satellite covers the 50 US states, the Caribbean, Central America and the Gulf of Mexico.
