CARIBBEAN BECOMES WIRELESS HOT SPOT

When Cingular Wireless sold its assets and spectrum licenses in several Caribbean markets last summer to Digicel, the deal might have been noticed more for Cingular getting out than for Digicel's plans for its new properties.

But for Digicel, a company founded by Denis O'Brien, the entrepreneur who started Ireland's Esat Telecom, the acquisition was one of several deals the firm pulled off in 2005 that positioned it for growth. The carrier also acquired Curacao Telecom and spectrum licenses to operate in Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago and other countries.

“Our raison d'etre is to be the biggest operator in the Caribbean,” O'Brien recently told Telephony. “For the last 10 to 15 years, people in these countries have had appalling cellular services and prices.”

Until just a few years ago, most Caribbean countries were subject to telecom monopolies, but deregulation has gradually started to move through the region, more quickly in some countries (Jamaica) than in others (Trinidad and Tobago). Digicel now operates GSM/GPRS networks in 15 Caribbean countries so far, with about 1.4 million subscribers.

In late 2005, vendor SOMA Networks announced a broadband wireless deployment with cayman one. It finds Caribbean nations favorable for wireless deployment in part because the region's status as a hurricane alley makes it inhospitable to wireline infrastructures, said Greg Caltobiano, CEO of SOMA Networks.

SOMA customer Gotel Communications has endured many storms in its six-year history and has deep knowledge of the region's environment, said Chief Operating Officer Undel Williams. “We have 150-foot towers that can withstand a Category 5 hurricane,” Williams said. “After that kind of storm, other companies are picking up their towers from the ground.”