Telecommunications in Central America and the Caribbean: State of the Marketplace

摘要

Collectively, the telecommunications industries in Latin America and the Caribbean have undergone dramatic changes in the last decade. With the push for privatization and liberalization running rampant throughout these two regions, the governments have begun looking toward a full open market that allows them to have state-of-the-art communications systems. Furthermore, with pressure from international organizations like the World Trade Organization, these countries are feeling the heat to allow foreign competition and to catch up with other parts of the world in terms of service offerings. As a result, various methods have been instituted to try and encourage these open markets. In some cases, great strides have been made by regulatory bodies. In others, a state-owned monopoly over basic telecom services has simply been replaced with a private monopoly. Those countries must now decide how they are going to bring in foreign investors to compete with these well-entrenched incumbents. Also, these governments need to further update their infrastructures to close the disparity in service offerings between rural and urban communities. For although the cities are seeing the emergence of 2.5G services, most rural communities do not even have basic telephone service.