{"id":7748,"date":"2011-04-14T08:23:27","date_gmt":"2011-04-14T12:23:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/?p=7748"},"modified":"2011-04-14T08:23:27","modified_gmt":"2011-04-14T12:23:27","slug":"research-markets-caribbean-telecom-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/2011\/04\/research-markets-caribbean-telecom-report","title":{"rendered":"Research &#038; Markets Caribbean Telecom Report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span><span><span><span><span><span>This report  provides an overview of the Caribbean\u2019s telecom sector accompanied by  relevant statistics and a brief profile of the major players.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><span><span><span><span><span><span>To order this report, visit the link to the original article below.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><span><span><span><span><span><span>The countries covered in this report include:<\/p>\n<p>Anguilla,  Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, British Virgin  Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Martinique,  Montserrat, (The former) Netherlands Antilles, St Kitts and Nevis, St  Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and  Caicos, United States Virgin Islands.<\/p>\n<p>Strong mobile markets despite economic recession:<\/p>\n<p>Liberalisation  of the telecommunications industry has taken place in most Caribbean  countries, with operators in these countries now being able to offer a  full range of telecom services. Despite being relatively small markets  by global standards, telecommunications has become one of the  Caribbean\u2019s major growth industries.<\/p>\n<p>While in a handful of  countries Cable &amp; Wireless (now rebranded LIME) still holds a  monopoly in the fixed-line sector, many countries now have other  operators offering fixed-line services at competitive prices.  Nevertheless, mobile has been the preferred technology for the region.  The region\u2019s mobile subscriber base has been witnessing significant  growth in recent years driven, in particular, by aggressive competition  from Digicel.<\/p>\n<p>Market highlights:<\/p>\n<p>During the global  financial crisis the region, which relies heavily on tourism, suffered  double-digit declines in incoming tourist numbers, effectively  triggering a recessionary environment in most Caribbean nations. In  spite of improvements in tourism revenues during 2010, the Caribbean  region still experienced negative growth in 2010 of an estimated 2.3%.<\/p>\n<p>During  2010, a number of Caribbean countries turned to the International  Monetary Fund and the World Bank for rescue financing or for alternative  fiscal and monetary policy arrangements. A number of countries also  implemented changes at the local level in an attempt to ease their  economic burdens, including taking such measures as raising taxes and  cutting spending.<\/p>\n<p>By early 2011 there were some positive signs  of increasing tourist numbers and offshore company activity that was  expected to precipitate further economic recovery. Furthermore, a United  Nations report launched in January 2011 predicted a modest 3.1% growth  rate for the Caribbean in 2011 and assessed the economic outlook for the  Latin American and Caribbean region to be robust by historical  standards. Relative to Latin America as a whole, however, the Caribbean  is likely to experience a slower economic recovery due to its being  highly dependent upon output growth in the USA.<\/p>\n<p>Despite numerous  attempts to privatise the Bahamas Telecommunications Company since the  late 1990s, by end 2010 the company still remained wholly state-owned.  However, in February 2011 Cable &amp; Wireless confirmed it had signed  agreements with the government of Bahamas to buy a 51% interest in BTC.<\/p>\n<p>In  December 2010 Telecom Services of Trinidad and Tobago announced the  launch of their commercial WiMAX network, reportedly the largest in the  Caribbean. Whilst at launch date the network covered only selected parts  of Trinidad and Tobago, Telecom Services of Trinidad and Tobago is  planning to extend the network during 2011 to connect all of the islands  that make up the Trinidad and Tobago archipelago.<\/p>\n<p>By early 2011  mobile penetration in the Caribbean region was over 62%. It is worth  noting, however, that penetration rates range from single figures to  over 300%.<\/p>\n<p>Data in this report is the latest available at the time of preparation and may not be for the current year.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This report provides an overview of the Caribbean\u2019s telecom sector accompanied by relevant statistics and a brief profile of the major players.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[36,100,43],"class_list":["post-7748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","tag-btc","tag-caribbean-2","tag-telecommunications"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7748\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}