By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas is “failing to leverage the internet’s full potential to drive entrepreneurship and business innovation”, industry regulators are asserting.

The Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority (URCA), in its consultation paper on a proposed regulatory framework for a Bahamas-based Internet Exchange Point (IXP), believes such a facility will help stimulate local online content creation and encourage popular websites to be hosted “in-country”.

A local IXP, URCA is arguing, would incentivise such developments by reducing the cost and time associated with access to Bahamian websites and content. It is also planning to require Internet Service Providers (ISPs), both mobile and broadband (BTC, Cable Bahamas and Aliv), “to keep local Internet traffic in The Bahamas” via an IXP rather than route it outside.

“Whilst broadband access and usage across the region have improved considerably, the limited use of the Internet to fuel business innovation and service delivery in both the private and public sectors locally remains an issue,” URCA argued.

“It is URCA’s view that The Bahamas is not leveraging the full potential of the Internet for driving digital entrepreneurship, and business development and innovation. URCA further agrees with assertions that government and private stakeholders can stimulate demand for online content and services by adopting policies to support local content and traffic exchange.”

It added: “URCA further understands that major international content providers do not have a physical presence in The Bahamas. For this reason, the popular international websites and services in The Bahamas are hosted overseas.

“Given prevailing practice, traffic to these sites travel over expensive international links before coming back in The Bahamas and are therefore subject to delays (increased latency) and increased packet loss. Same is true when local websites and services are hosted outside The Bahamas.

“Given this, URCA considers that the presence of local IXPs would induce popular web content providers to host their content in-country in order to provide quality services to end-users.”

While there was nothing in Bahamian law or regulation to mandate that local ISPs keep domestic Internet traffic in this nation, URCA expressed concern that its IXP plan may be undermined by one unnamed company’s determination to keep routing messages and other transmissions outside this nation.

“URCA is concerned that a decision by a major ISP to continue to route domestic traffic externally could undermine entry of an IXP in The Bahamas,” it added.

“Given URCA’s intent, URCA proposes to require Internet infrastructure companies (including cellular/mobile) to keep local Internet traffic in The Bahamas unless exceptional circumstances prevent it. URCA proposes to implement this measure either by way of an amendment to existing licences or by way of a separate regulatory measure.”

URCA described an IXP as “critical infrastructure” in localising Internet traffic, and added: “IXPs engender competition and investment in Internet infrastructure and services.

“Accordingly, it is URCA’s viewpoint that the building of local IXPs should induce ISPs and content aggregators to connect directly with one another and exchange domestic Internet within The Bahamas, thus reducing or eliminating their dependence on expensive international links for transport.”

The most popular websites visited by Bahamians, according to URCA, were search engines such as Google and Yahoo, together with social media engines such as Facebook and sites like Amazon, Netflix, ebay, Instagram and Wikipedia.

Pornhub.com, the world’s largest online adult pornography site, was the 13th most-visited website among Bahamians, with each visitor spending an average of almost nine minutes on the site and looking at three-and-a-half pages.

It proved more popular than the Government’s own website and that of the most popular web shop, Island Luck, which came in 19th and 20th, respectively, among the websites most visited by Bahamians.

“Evidence also exists to show that an increasing number of Bahamians are signing on to social media sites, especially Facebook. With 210,000 Facebook subscribers in 2016, The Bahamas had the seventh most Facebook users in the Caribbean region,” URCA said.

“As of March 2019, the number of Facebook subscribers in The Bahamas was approximately 211,936 or a penetration rate of 64.59 percent, up from a base of 64 percent in 2016. Note that a penetration rate of 64.59 percent is significantly higher than the penetration rates for other social networks.

“As regards to local content, Alexa.com published that amongst the local websites frequented by residents of The Bahamas are Island Luck, Paradise Games, University of The Bahamas, websites of leading commercial banks, Bluepostal, Bahamas Local, Nassau Guardian, Tribune 242 and Bahamas.Gov.bs.”