Dominica Communication Profile 2012

Telecoms, Mobile, Broadband and Forecasts
Executive summary BuddeComm's Dominican Republic - Telecoms, Mobile, Broadband and Forecasts, profiles the fixed-line, mobile and broadband markets in Dominican Republic. Although enjoying a relatively modern and mostly digital telecom system, the Dominican Republic's fixed-line teledensity is well below the Latin American average. Mobile penetration is nearly ten times higher than fixed-line teledensity, and is about average for Latin America. The Dominican Republic's income inequalities are still reflected in its telephone distribution; some people own multiple mobile phones each, yet there are communities comprising hundreds of families without access to a single phone line. The Dominican Republican government has been aggressively addressing the issue of access with a number of projects and a major broadband deployment partnership with incumbent Codetel. Although the global financial crisis took its toll on the economies of the Caribbean region, which contracted by an average of 2% during 2009, the Dominican Republic stood in stark contrast with positive growth of around 2%. Accordingly, investment in telecommunications and emerging services such as wireless broadband and VoIP continued to strengthen during 2009 and early 2010. This report contains overviews, analyses and statistics of the Dominican Republic's fixed-line, mobile and broadband markets. The report also discussed convergence issues and provides forecasts of broadband and mobile phone subscriber growth. Market highlights: Internet use has grown rapidly in recent years. For instance, in 2009 Internet users grew 40% to over 3 million, more than double the number of users in Jamaica, its nearest Caribbean rival in terms of Internet user numbers. In late 2009 Indotel announced that it would be adding another 1,000 communities to its target of providing voice and broadband services to rural parts of the country. Despite the global economic downturn, investment in telecommunications continued to grow strongly, with an estimated $750 million invested during 2009 alone. In January 2010, Indotel announced plans to install 100 free WiFi hotspots in over 100 communities across the country over the following two years, with at least one WiFi public access spot in each municipality. While cell-phone subscriber growth remained in double digit figures during 2009, growth rates from 2010 are expected to continue to decline as penetration rates approach and exceed 100%.