Research and Markets: Caribbean Telecommunications Report Q3 2010

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/218ea1/caribbean_telecomm) has announced the addition of the "Caribbean Telecommunications Report Q3 2010" report to their offering.

This Caribbean Telecommunications Report provides industry professionals and strategists, corporate analysts, telecommunication associations, government departments and regulatory bodies with independent forecasts and competitive intelligence on the Caribbean's telecommunications industry.

Year-end 2009 data have now become available from many of the regions operators and regulators as well as from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which has helped round out and bring up to date our historical growth summaries for fixed-line, mobile and broadband usage in the Caribbean. It has also provided a clearer starting point for our forecasts for the region, though recent data for Guadeloupe and Martinique are still hard to come by. Nevertheless, we have taken the opportunity to extensively revise our forecasts, which, in most cases, have only changed slightly.

What is clearer than ever before is that usage of traditional fixed-line services is on the decline in many markets. Customers are switching to low-cost prepaid mobile phones for their basic communications needs, and this has left the fixed-line operators by and large these are mostly state-owned or Cable & Wireless-owned incumbents at the mercy of alternative players. In most markets, the sole alternative is Digicel Group, whose focus on low-value products and high-quality phones has stood it in good stead, winning more than 9mn subscribers by March 2010. In particular, Digicel points to the runaway popularity of mobile broadband services and the BlackBerry handsets it offers subscribers as a reason for this.

However, residential users still need some kind of affordable high-bandwidth connection, and operators are increasingly turning to WiMAX to meet this need. WiMAX is particularly suited to the topography of the Caribbean, where many countries consist of clusters of islands, and, therefore, it is not cost-effective to build cellular networks that need to be supplemented by submarine cables or satellite connections. Telecommunications Services of Trinidad And Tobago (TSTT) is developing a WiMAX network, as is Digicel Jamaica, while WIND Telecom in the Dominican Republic is ramping up its nascent WiMAX offering.

The January 2010 earthquake in Haiti rendered much of the existing fixed-line infrastructure in the main population centres unusable. We would expect to see reconstruction efforts focus on WiMAX there, too, although it is not known whether the incumbents new investment partner, Viettel Corporation, favours WiMAX, given the success it has enjoyed with GSM and UMTS technologies in its home market of Vietnam.

Key Topics Covered:

• Executive Summary
• SWOT Analysis
• Caribbean Telecommunications SWOT
• Caribbean Political SWOT
• Caribbean Economic SWOT
• Caribbean Business Environment SWOT
• Business Environment
• Caribbean
• Tables

Companies Mentioned:

• Digicel
• Cable & Wireless

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/218ea1/caribbean_telecomm

CONTACT:

Research and Markets
Laura Wood, Senior Manager,
press@researchandmarkets.com
U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907
Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

KEYWORDS:   Caribbean

INDUSTRY KEYWORDS:   Technology  Telecommunications

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