Gigabit Caribbean: Closing the Investment Gap in Fixed and Mobile Networks
Financing broadband networks is a global hot topic. The world lacks some $2 trillion in network investment, and one-third of the world’s population remains offline for lack of income. Broadband network providers experience that the cost to manage video traffic in their networks grows faster than revenue, and they can’t raise prices to manage cost. More largely, the business models to recover network cost were enshrined before video traffic began to predominate. These challenges are exacerbated in emerging countries with high cost for capital and energy.
Strand Consult explores these issues in an important emerging region of some two dozen nations and 45 million people, the Caribbean. Its new report “Gigabit Caribbean: Closing the Investment Gap in Fixed and Mobile Networks” describes the economic challenges, quantifies the Gigabit broadband investment gap, and suggests solutions. The report is part of Strand Consult’s Global Project for Business Models for Broadband Cost Recovery which has examined these issues in a series of reports with original research. The Caribbean report follows a series which has examined policy in the US, UK, South Korea, Africa, and other countries.
The Caribbean Gigabit Society defines universal connectivity for all people of the Caribbean at 100 Mbps for the purpose of enabling employment and economic development through the take up of advanced digital goods and services; global competitiveness in making the region attractive for investment; and the rollout of high capacity fixed and mobile networks.
The report “Gigabit Caribbean: Closing the Investment Gap in Fixed and Mobile Networks” includes
- Presentation of the broadband investment gap by technology, subscribers, households passed, and dollar amounts with tables and graphs based on survey of 21 nations
- Gigabit Caribbean policy goals and objectives
- Survey result on obstacles to connectivity, affordability and rollout
- Case study on Haiti
- Cost Recovery Solutions
The report puts the set of sovereign yet interdependent Caribbean nations in geopolitical and economic context. The United Nations categorizes the Caribbean as Small Island Developing States (SIDS), a distinct group of nations which face unique social, economic and environmental vulnerabilities. These challenges are described in part in Strand Consult’s research note The Caribbean is a microcosm of Big Tech’s digital colonialism. Small and medium-sized emerging countries are profitable to exploit.
The report describes market-based cost recovery business models which could be implemented without taxation based on principles of cost reflectiveness, equity, transparency, efficiency, and affordability. Government subsidies and universal service funds (USFs) are non-starters given the scale of the requirements and the efficacy of regional tax collection and distribution. Importantly governments can play a role to ensue good faith negotiation for the delivery of network traffic. Consumers themselves cannot cover the full cost of broadband networks. Only when the largest networks users participate in cost recovery will business models work to close the digital divide in the Caribbean.
Strand Consult’s report “Gigabit Caribbean: Closing the Investment Gap in Fixed and Mobile Networks” is the first of its kind to detail both mobile and fixed line broadband data in a granular level for the Caribbean; it provides a helpful overview and specifics of broadband in the Caribbean.
Order Strand Consult’s new report “Gigabit Caribbean: Closing the Investment Gap in Fixed and Mobile Networks” now.
