The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A ‘zero’ score for ‘public policy and strategic vision’ has dropped the Bahamas to a mid-table ranking in the Inter-American Development Bank’s (IDB) newly-launched broadband Internet penetration rankings for Latin America and the Caribbean.

The DigiLAC platform, unveiled yesterday by the IDB, ranked the Bahamas 15th out of 26 Western Hemisphere nations included in the survey, placing this country behind Caribbean rivals such as Barbados, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and Trinidad & Tobago.

Yet a closer examination of the IDB/ DigiLAC assessment shows that, had the Bahamas been ranked on regulation, infrastructure and private sector service provision alone, this nation’s score would have ranked it in the top three.

What let the Bahamas down, though, was the ‘zero’ score it achieved for ‘public policy and strategic vision’ on broadband Internet, a preserve that is solely the Government’s.

This IDB/DigiLAC ranking could be interpreted as reflecting the Government’s failure to release its revised Communications Sector Policy, which should have become public more than a year ago.

Well-placed sources familiar with developments have told Tribune Business that the Government has approved the new Communications Sector Policy, but it has yet to formally released to the industry and the public via the Utilities Regulation & Competition Authority (URCA).

Several observers have suggested that the policy’s release is likely being linked to the timetable, and process, for cellular liberalisation and the auction/bidding for the second licence.

Prime Minister Perry Christie recently indicated that the cellular liberalisation timetable and processes were being developed by a government-appointed committee headed by former financial secretary, Ruth Millar.

Whatever, the DigiLAC survey made clear that the Bahamas’s score, and ranking, was “dragged down” by the seeming absence of government policy and vision on broadband Internet penetration.

The Bahamas scored 5.46 on regulation; 4.73 for infrastructure; and 5.22 for broadband Internet knowledge and application. Combining these three scores would have given this nation a 5.41 rating that would have placed this nation third in the DigiLAC survey, just behind second placed Barbados at 5.47.

The importance of the survey findings lies in the fact that countless studies have shown broadband Internet is a key economic and social development tool, a message repeatedly echoed by the Bahamas Telecommunications Company’s (BTC) controlling shareholder, Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC).

The IDB reiterated yesterday that its own research had shown a 10 per cent increase in penetration of broadband Internet services carries with it an average rise of 3.2 per cent in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and 2.6 percentage points in productivity.

Marlon Johnson, BTC’s senior vice-president of marketing, told Tribune Business yesterday that of the carrier’s annual $50 million capital expenditures over the past three years, at least $20 million of this sum had been devoted to expanding its broadband network - both terrestrial and mobile.

Emphasising BTC’s commitment to ensuring the Bahamas “becomes a leader in broadband penetration”, Mr Johnson said it was also assessing whether its newly-launched Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology could provide the foundation for a terrestrial Internet “substitute” in more sparsely populated islands.

While unable to comment directly on the IDB survey and how the scores/rankings were calculated, he added: “We have 4G connectivity in all the major islands of the Bahamas, and are rolling out LTE through every island.

“It [LTE] provides a successful product to persons who otherwise would not be connected from a terrestrial perspective.”

Further explaining BTC’s strategic thinking on a mobile broadband alternative to landline Internet, Mr Johnson told Tribune Business: “That’s one of the things we’re exploring, the extent to which we can use LTE as a substitute for terrestrial broadband.

“Can we go into the south-eastern islands, the smaller cays and create a broadband-type product using LTE technology.”

Mr Johnson said BTC’s target was to meet development goals set by the United Nations for broadband Internet reach and penetration.

“I think all the activities that we’re doing now, for both terrestrial investment and mobile investment, will ensure greater access by all Bahamians to information technology and all the associated benefits that come with that,” he added.

“Overall, we’ve been investing $50 million annually over the last three years, and of that, I would probably hazard $20 million, at a minimum, has been invested in expanding broadband’s reach.

“Our ambition is to make sure we become a leader as far as broadband penetration. We will do our part to get into that [DigiLAC] top five countries.”

Mr Johnson pledged that BTC would continue to invest in improving the speed and quality of its network throughout the Bahamas, in response to customer demands.

He added that BTC was the only provider with a network throughout the country, and said: “It’s our commitment to ensure we have broadband penetration throughout the length and breadth of the Bahamas.”

The Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority’s (URCA) 2013 annual report noted that the Bahamian broadband Internet market contracted by 8.6 per cent to just over 70,900 subscribers.

This resulted in a decline in penetration to 19.7 per cent, compared to 21.9 per cent in 2012, bringing the market more into line for penetration rate estimates in 2010 and 2011. Post-paid mobile data customers stood at 96,000.