The state of recovery of the Caribbean economy is still of utmost concern for Cable & Wireless Communications (C&WC), though the company expects to bounce back with new services. And some progress has been made as regards the sale of stakes in Belize's and the Bahamas' incumbent telcos.

C&WC

C&WC’s CEO Tony Rice said during a conference call on its mid fiscal year financial report that the company was holding market share in most markets but still facing challenges, not least due to the faltering Caribbean economy.

C&WC’s Caribbean revenue saw a 6% drop in the second quarter. However, Rice said he was confident that the right management team was in place, especially in Jamaica where the company has lost significant mobile share to Irish competitor Digicel.

And Rice is optimistic that with new products it can turn things around. C&WC is planning the rollout of IPTV across the region in 2011 and mobile TV in Jamaica before Christmas. The company is also building an East-West underwater cable to increase regional and international capacity and provide an additional route to North and Latin America.

"So overall in the Caribbean, we'll be ready to deliver performance once the economy turns, and it will turn, but the question is when," he said.

The executive said the company had been encouraged in how its triple play offering in Panama had helped reduce churn and helped recover market share lost to new entrants. Based on that C&WC is now studying means of how it could begin offering quadruple play services across its markets next year.

Rice clarified the situation regarding C&WC's rumored interest in buying a 51% stake in Bahamas incumbent BTC admitting that the company was in talks but that no decision had yet been made contrary to press reports that said a deal had already been done.

BELIZE

There have also been some news regarding the future control of Belize Telemedia Limited (BTL).

The government took control of 94.5% of BTL in a controversial move last year. Prime Minister Dean Barrow claimed that this was not "nationalization" as such but a necessary evil to break BTL's monopoly of the telecoms industry and promised to eventually give BTL back to the private sector.

BTL holds almost 100% of Belize's fixed telephony market, 67% of the mobile market and is the largest ISP in the country.

In September, Belize newspaper Amandala reported that Irish-owned mobile operator Digicel was interested in buying into the operator and had been given a tour of BTL in exchange of information under the terms of a non-disclosure agreement.

A Mexican investor also expressed interest, BTL's chairman Nestor Vasquez reportedly said.

Then in October Belize's government offered 44.5% of Belize Telemedia Limited (BTL) for purchase by Belizean citizens and Belizean-owned companies. The offering is for up to 22.07mn ordinary shares at a price of B$5.00 (US$2.56) per share.

Opened on October 15, the offer period ends on December 31. Applicants must pay for the shares at the time of application, and will be notified whether the offer has been accepted within 35 days of receipt.

IN OTHER NEWS

-The deal has closed between Vietnamese mobile operator Viettel and Haitian state telco Teleco and its majority owner, the central bank of Haiti (BRH), to create a new telecommunications firm in the Caribbean nation.

The deal - structured by the IFC, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group - was originally announced in May and reached closure on September 1, giving rise to a new telecoms operator, Natcom.

- Digicel launched a mobile money service in Haiti in October and expects half of its customer base, or over 1mn people, to sign up in the first three years.

In addition, being one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere, Haiti has a remittance market worth some US$1bn per year. By the second half of 2011, Digicel is planning to have a system in place whereby relatives in the US and Canada will be able to deposit money into the mobile wallet accounts of their families in Haiti.

-Never far from legal frays with its arch rival C&WC, Digicel has begun legal proceedings with the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court, accusing C&WC of anti-competitive behavior in Antigua & Barbuda.

Digicel challenges the purported exclusive monopoly held by C&WC on international calls coming in and out of Antigua & Barbuda.

This is the latest in an ongoing series of legal wrangling between the two giants. In September, Jamaica's supreme court dismissed C&WC's request for injunctive relief in an ongoing case where it accused Digicel of anti-competitive behavior.

In related news, in October the British Virgin Islands' telecoms regulator TRC launched an investigation into alleged anticompetitive behavior from Digicel.

-Concern that tax on technology and services may be hindering the development of information societies in the Caribbean has been a recurring issue coming from a series of ICT roadshows carried out by the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU) in recent months.

Debate about ICT taxation in the Caribbean is nothing new, but inconsistency in policies across the different islands is increasingly appearing as an obstacle to CTU's efforts to push countries toward embracing the concept of an information society, the CTU's secretary general Bernadette Lewis said recently.

-The Caribbean Telecoms Union (CTU) is optimistic there will be two regional Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) serving the English-speaking Caribbean by year-end, with the British Virgin Islands (BVI) and Grenada appearing to be the most advanced in the process.

Governments of other countries - including St Vincent and the Grenadines, St Lucia and Trinidad & Tobago - have also committed to developing IXPs. The region already has IXPs in St Martin, Curaçao, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

-Columbus Communications commercially launched its triple play offering in Curacao in October adding to the company's triple play provider units called Flow in Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago and Grenada.

Columbus has a data center in Curacao which will now become the hub from which the company operates. Sigma Systems deployed a service management platform (SMP) to help Columbus manage its growing triple play business, add new services and cut costs.