Dominican Republic takes first steps toward e-passport – Dominican R.
TSTT secures US$300mn for broadband rollout – Trinidad & Tobago
Costa Rican watchdog to lift price controls on four markets – Costa Rica
IN BRIEF: América Móvil to list on NYSE – Regional
Advanced analytics make difference in customer experience – Regional

Dominican Republic takes first steps toward e-passport – Dominican R.
The Dominican Republic has taken the first steps toward implementing an electronic passport.
The travel document will contain a chip with the holder’s basic information, which will be read by electronic equipment located at the country’s entry and exit terminals. In addition, the passport will have a unique permanent identity number.
Aracenis Castillo de la Cruz, director of airport security organisms Cesac, said the civil aviation authorities already have the chip-reading equipment. However, it cannot yet be implemented due to the nature of the passports currently used in the country.
The directorate of passports has begun the process of installing chips in passports, which has been deemed as an initial approach by civil aviation authorities, reported daily Listin Diario.
Uruguay began issuing passports and ID cards with embedded chips in 2015. Now that country has introduced face-recognition technology at airport gates.


TSTT secures US$300mn for broadband rollout – Trinidad & Tobago

Trinidad & Tobago’s state-run telco TSTT has secured a 2bn-Trinidadian dollar (US$297mn) financing package to partially fund the company’s 3.7bn-Trinidadian dollar broadband network rollout over the next two years, the Trinidad Express reported.
In August the company’s board approved a five-year strategic plan that includes transforming its IP core, wired and wireless infrastructure, as well as its retail and customer service support systems in a move to become an agile broadband company.
TSTT will roll out an augmented Fiber-Centric Residential Solution that will pass more than 200,000 homes.
The company has said it aims to see a greater than 20% revenue growth over five years, predominantly in broadband, TSTT will also explore new lines of revenue such as mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures.
The transformation has already started and it has already seen significant improvements in network capacity and coverage, TSTT CEO Ronald Walcott was quoted as saying in August. Phase 2 involves optimizing spectrum for improved data speeds and coverage.

Costa Rican watchdog to lift price controls on four markets – Costa Rica
Costa Rica’s telecom regulator Sutel is set to eliminate price regulations in four markets where it has identified sufficient elements of effective competition.
International telephony, fixed internet, international roaming and telecommunications transport services are the four areas that the regulator deemed competitive enough to operate without price regulations, Sutel said in a release.
Sutel will continue monitoring the quality of services, protect users’ right, and intervene when it identifies anticompetitive practices, said the president of the watchdog, Manuel Emilio Ruiz Gutierrez.
The regulator noted that operators did not provide homogenous information on the postpaid mobile market. Therefore, it will carry out a new analysis of effective competition and conduct another public consultation in the first quarter of next year.
Telecom association Asiet has urged Sutel to drop price regulations on mobile telephony, both prepaid and postpaid, arguing that it is damaging to consumers and operators alike.
The origination markets, termination on individual mobile networks and fixed telephony, where state-run ICE continues to dominate, will continue being subject to price regulations due to a lack of effective competition.

IN BRIEF: América Móvil to list on NYSE – Regional
América Móvil issued a regulatory filing stating that, pursuant to the resolutions adopted at its shareholders meeting on October 6 regarding the delisting of shares from Nasdaq, the company intends to transfer its listing to the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
The transfer involves the company’s Series A American Depositary Shares shares (ADSs), with each ADS representing the right to receive 20 Series A shares of the company.
América Móvil expects that the ADSs will be listed and begin trading on the NYSE on December 13 under the ticker symbol AMOV. In the meantime, the ADSs will continue to trade on Nasdaq.


Advanced analytics make difference in customer experience – Regional

The use of advanced analytics to enhance customer experiences can have a considerable impact on differentiating one company’s offer from the others, ultimately increasing average customer spending, according to Mario Jiménez, director of apps and customer experience at Mexican ICT business solutions provider Ho1a.
Jiménez said during a webinar that an increasingly competitive environment leads companies to rely on customer experiences as a major differentiator, adding that customers are more informed as they tend to carry out research before deciding on a purchase. He also pointed out that new services give companies more flexibility to implement new business models and services.
The transformation of client experiences extends to the use of automation and digital tools, as well as changes in processes. These changes can lead to increases of 22% in the average order value and 30% in the frequency with which a returning customer makes purchases.
In order to get to know their customers, companies can take advantage of information from open data, the internet of things, social media, personal information and commercial transactions, he said. However, Jiménez noted that there are other data sources that companies are putting to use.
Commercial establishments that offer free Wi-Fi to customers can obtain information on when clients visit the store and how much time they spend there. Mobile applications can also shed light on customers’ propensity to spending, proximity to a store and the products in which they are interested. A customer’s browsing history also helps companies push relevant publicity at the most appropriate time.
Jiménez revealed that Ho1a’s approach to advanced analytics is based on identifying, differentiating, interacting and adapting its offering.
Firstly, customer profiles have to be created and polished to ensure data hygiene and deduplication. Jiménez mentioned that, by following these steps, Ho1a has been able to improve data quality from 69.4% to 93.2% in several cases.
Ho1a helps its clients implement algorithm analysis to learn about their customers, including recency, frequency and monetary value (RFM), next best offer (NBO) and churn rate. The latter can help a company identify certain behaviors that suggest a client will leave the supplier so that personalized retention measures can be put in place if needed.
Detailed knowledge about customers’ consumption habits and interests allows the company to implement recommendation engines and offer unique promotions based on the client’s individual profile.
Jiménez cited data from consulting firm Deloitte, indicating that customers spent 22% more than intended in cases when the company implemented customized digital strategies. In addition, a study from independent consulting firm Nucleus Research indicates that for every dollar a company spends on advanced analytics for customer experiences it gets US$8.71 back.
Telco AT&T has been using advanced data analytics to improve customer experiences and strengthen the capacity of its networks.

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