Caribbean roundup: Dominica’s broadband, DR’s fiber, Puerto Rico submarine cable – Regional
DirecTV satellites successfully in orbit – Regional
Costa Rica, Guatemala to represent half of CentAm’s LTE lines by 2019 – Central America
Internet users to reach 57% of LatAm by 2019, says Cisco – Regional
Latin America to have 2.9 devices per capita in 2019 – Brazil, Regional

Caribbean roundup: Dominica’s broadband, DR’s fiber, Puerto Rico submarine cable – Regional

Dominica is on the verge of a massive broadband update, telecom minister Kelvar Darroux told Caribbean Journal.
The aim of the upgrade is to standardize services throughout the island, where geography makes continuous coverage a challenge. “The issue of broadband access has always been a concern for us,” said Darroux.
Dominica’s government has asked Ectel, the regulatory body for Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, to discuss a solution. “We have asked Ectel to meet the service providers to further develop their infrastructure as it relates to broadband,” he said.
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Dominican Republic’s watchdog Indotel has resolved to bury the wire and cable network that brings broadband to the island in order to help improve the aesthetics of Santo Domingo.
Operators Claro, Tricom, Wind Telecom, Viva Dominicana, Orange, Aster and Onemax agreed to start taking down the unused cable to “visually clean up” the historic center of Santo Domingo.
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Puerto Rico has deployed its submarine fiber optic network, which had suffered from delays due to technical issues.
Five major telecom companies, including Telefónica, backed the project, which will connect seven countries and territories in the Caribbean, Central America and South America.
The deployment, which was initially scheduled for early May, was finally effective this week.

DirecTV satellites successfully in orbit – Regional

French space company Arianespace has successfully launched and put into orbit two satellites for DTH provider DirecTV designed to boost coverage and capacity in the US and Latin America.
The DirecTV-15 satellite for the US and SKY México’s SKY México-1 were launched on the back of the Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana, the company said in a press release.
DirecTV-15 was built by Airbus Defence and Space and will provide new HD and 4K UHD broadcast services to the US, including Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico.
Sky Mexico-1 will offer HD TV broadcasting services to Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. Orbital ATK built the satellite in 20 months, four months ahead of schedule.
DirecTV is the leading satellite TV provider in Latin America and, through its DirecTV Sports division, it currently holds the rights to broadcast the Copa America soccer tournament that begins next month.
DirecTV Latin America (DTVLA) owns 93% of Sky Brasil, 41% of Sky Mexico and 100% of PanAmericana, which covers most of the remaining countries in the region.
Sky Mexico, whose results are not consolidated by DTVLA, had approximately 6.77mn subscribers as of March 31, 2015, bringing the total subscribers in the region to 19.46mn.
The company was acquired by AT&T last year and the deal is still in the process of regulatory approval.
Mexico’s Mexsat satellite program suffered a blow last week when its Centenario satellite crashed in Kazakhstan.

Costa Rica, Guatemala to represent half of CentAm’s LTE lines by 2019 – Central America

4G LTE lines are expected to increase sharply in the next four years in Central America, with Costa Rica and Guatemala accounting for 24.8% and 30.5% of them, respectively – over half of total 4G subscriptions.
According to a study by 4G Americas, Central America will see its number of 4G LTE users grow from 400,000 at end-2014 to 1.9mn by 2019 – growth of some 375%. After Guatemala and Costa Rica, Honduras and El Salvador will follow in subscription numbers, accounting for 17.3% and 14.3% of lines respectively. Panama will represent 10.4% and Nicaragua 2.8%.
The consultancy said that the development of 4G LTE is fully dependent on the concession of the 700MHz spectrum, which is still suffering delays in the region. Concessions should be awarded through open and non-discriminatory auctions, while requirements for deploying necessary infrastructure should also be eased, it added.
“It is important to reduce the bureaucratic processes to obtain permits to build infrastructure, and approve legislation that reduces fiscal obligations to services and devices,” read the study. “This would eliminate barriers that prevent customers from using the network.”
By the end of 2014, Central America had 52.2mn mobile lines, including 7.7mn (or 14.6%) broadband customers. This figure is expected to reach 58mn by 2019, of which a third will be broadband.
Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC) deployed Panama’s first LTE network in March, after two years of investment and deployment of infrastructure. Guatemala receives LTE services from Movistar and Tigo.
According to the GSM association (GSMA), LTE networks will reach over three quarters of the Latin American population by the end of 2020.
Currently, the technology is available to a little more than 2% of Latin Americans.

Internet users to reach 57% of LatAm by 2019, says Cisco – Regional

Latin America will have 371mn internet users by 2019 out of an estimated population of 655mn people. That means 57% of the people in the region will be connected by then, compared to 42% last year, growth of 7.4% in the period
The figures are from Cisco, which released its latest Visual Networking Index (VNI) this Wednesday (May 27), providing projections for global IP traffic.
Despite the expected expansion in LatAm in 2014-2019, however, the growth is expected to be lower than that in other emerging regions, such as the Middle East and Africa (10.3%) and Asia Pacific (8.7%).
On the other hand, that growth forecast is high than for Western Europe (0.9%), North America (1.0%) and Central and Eastern Europe (5.3%).
Globally, 51% of the world’s estimated 7.6bn people will be internet users in 2019, up from 39% in 2014, an expansion of some 6.9% according to Cisco.
GLOBAL IP TRAFFIC
Internet users will also demand more and more data. Cisco expects global IP traffic to grow 23% in 2014-2019, compared to 21% in its previous forecast for 2013-2018, surpassing the zettabyte (1000 exabytes) threshold in 2016 and the two zettabyte mark in 2019.
The soaring number of connected devices, mainly in the connected home and connected health area, and online video consumption are seen as the chief drivers of the surge in IP traffic, said Hugo Baeta, Cisco Brasil director for the operators segment, in a press conference in São Paulo.
Some 80% of all consumer internet traffic in 2019 will be related to consumer internet video traffic, up from 64% in 2014. That rate does not include video exchanged through peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing. If combined, all forms of video (TV, video on demand [VoD], Internet, and P2P) will be account for between 80% and 90% of global consumer traffic by 2019, according to Cisco.
In Latin America, IP traffic is expected to reach 12.9 exabytes per month by 2019, at a growth rate of 25% in the period, slightly above the global average.

Latin America to have 2.9 devices per capita in 2019 – Brazil, Regional

Latin America will have 1.91bn connected devices by 2019, up from 1.22bn last year, of which 785mn will be in Brazil, according to Cisco’s latest Visual Networking Index (VNI) forecasts.
That means an average of 2.9 devices/connections per person, considering Latin America will have 655mn inhabitants by that time, according to Cisco’s projections. Currently, this rate is at 1.9 devices/connections per person.
However, that rate in Latin America will still be below the global average.
Worldwide, the Internet-of-Things trend will lead to a proliferation of connectivity and to a total of 24bn connected devices. That gives a rate of 3.2 devices/connections per inhabitant.
In terms of users, Cisco predicts the region will have 371mn by 2019, up from 260mn in 2014, which will be a 70% jump.
Home to a projected 32% of the Latin American population in 2019, Brazil will account for 36%, or 134mn, of the region’s total internet users. This means the country will have 65% more users than the 88mn Cisco estimates the country had in 2014.
This will be the highest growth among the countries assessed individually in the study – Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Chile – and slightly below the 68% growth forecast for the rest of the LatAm countries combined.

The information presented and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of CANTO and/or its members