An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Re­port­ing from Pun­ta Cana, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic

The Caribbean’s telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions sec­tor needs greater re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion, har­monised reg­u­la­to­ry ap­proach­es and sus­tained in­vest­ment if the re­gion is to at­tract new play­ers and keep pace with the rapid de­vel­op­ment of dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies, says CAN­TO sec­re­tary gen­er­al Tere­sa Wankin.

Wankin made the com­ments dur­ing a sit-down in­ter­view with Busi­ness Guardian on Tues­day, at the 41st CAN­TO An­nu­al Con­fer­ence and Trade Ex­hi­bi­tion in Pun­ta Cana, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, where telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions op­er­a­tors, reg­u­la­tors, gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies from across the Caribbean gath­ered to dis­cuss the fu­ture of con­nec­tiv­i­ty and dig­i­tal de­vel­op­ment.

For Wankin, in­vest­ment is cen­tral to al­most every as­pect of the re­gion’s telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions fu­ture, from in­fra­struc­ture and tech­nol­o­gy to peo­ple and in­no­va­tion.

“In­vest­ment in in­fra­struc­ture, in­vest­ment in tech­nol­o­gy, in­vest­ment in the peo­ple. So in­vest­ment in the sec­tor is need­ed,” she stat­ed.

She not­ed that telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­nies con­tin­ue to in­vest even as rev­enues come un­der pres­sure, dri­ven by the ex­pec­ta­tions of con­sumers who want faster, more re­li­able and in­creas­ing­ly so­phis­ti­cat­ed dig­i­tal ser­vices.

“What a user holds a phone in their hand, and they want What­sApp, and they want any­thing quick­ly, with the speed of light­ning, some­one has to be at that course for that to hap­pen,” Wankin in­di­cat­ed.

The lev­el of in­vest­ment re­quired is not al­ways vis­i­ble to con­sumers. A sim­ple What­sApp call or on­line ser­vice de­pends on an ex­ten­sive net­work of in­fra­struc­ture, tech­nol­o­gy and skilled peo­ple op­er­at­ing be­hind the scenes.

Wankin said com­pa­nies there­fore have to con­tin­ue in­vest­ing to en­sure cus­tomers have ac­cess to the lat­est tech­nol­o­gy, de­spite changes in the com­mer­cial en­vi­ron­ment.

“Rev­enues are erod­ing. But the com­pa­nies con­tin­ue to in­vest to en­sure that the cus­tomer has the lat­est tech­nol­o­gy al­ways in their pock­ets or hands,” she said.

She be­lieves the Caribbean re­mains an at­trac­tive in­vest­ment mar­ket, de­spite the chal­lenges posed by its ge­og­ra­phy and the rel­a­tive­ly small size of in­di­vid­ual is­land economies.

The chal­lenge, how­ev­er, is that the re­gion of­ten presents it­self to po­ten­tial in­vestors as a col­lec­tion of sep­a­rate mar­kets rather than one con­nect­ed Caribbean mar­ket.

Frag­men­ta­tion re­mains a bar­ri­er to in­vest­ment

Wankin iden­ti­fied frag­men­ta­tion as one of the biggest chal­lenges fac­ing the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions in­dus­try in the re­gion.

While Caribbean coun­tries share many of the same chal­lenges, each ju­ris­dic­tion has its own laws, reg­u­la­tions and pol­i­cy frame­works. This can cre­ate ad­di­tion­al com­plex­i­ty for com­pa­nies look­ing to in­vest or ex­pand across mul­ti­ple ter­ri­to­ries.

“We op­er­ate in lots of si­los, even though we’re small is­land de­vel­op­ment states,” she said.

The prob­lem is par­tic­u­lar­ly sig­nif­i­cant for po­ten­tial new en­trants. A com­pa­ny seek­ing to ex­pand across the Caribbean may have to nav­i­gate sep­a­rate reg­u­la­to­ry re­quire­ments in each coun­try rather than op­er­at­ing with­in a more co­or­di­nat­ed re­gion­al frame­work.

Wankin said this makes it more dif­fi­cult for in­vest­ment to flow in­to the re­gion.

“Each ju­ris­dic­tion has its own laws, has its own leg­is­la­tion, which makes it very dif­fi­cult for in­vest­ment in the re­gion and for new play­ers to come in be­cause they would have to go in­di­vid­u­al­ly in each coun­try, and that’s dif­fi­cult,” she ex­plained.

CAN­TO, she said, is seek­ing to help break down some of the si­los by pro­vid­ing a re­gion­al plat­form that brings to­geth­er op­er­a­tors, gov­ern­ments, reg­u­la­tors and tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion works with the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TATT) and the Caribbean Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Union (CTU), among oth­er stake­hold­ers, to fa­cil­i­tate the ex­change of ex­per­tise and best prac­tices.

Wankin said reg­u­la­tion has a par­tic­u­lar­ly im­por­tant role to play in cre­at­ing an en­vi­ron­ment that can at­tract in­vest­ment.

“Reg­u­la­tions are very im­por­tant to us be­cause reg­u­la­tions can at­tract new in­vest­ment in the re­gion,” she said.

CAN­TO us­es its con­fer­ences, reg­u­la­to­ry fo­rums and oth­er pro­grammes to ex­pose Caribbean stake­hold­ers to in­ter­na­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ences and reg­u­la­to­ry prac­tices that could be adapt­ed to the re­gion.

For op­er­a­tors, the or­gan­i­sa­tion pro­vides op­por­tu­ni­ties to en­gage di­rect­ly with tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies and iden­ti­fy so­lu­tions to chal­lenges fac­ing their busi­ness­es. For reg­u­la­tors, it cre­ates spaces for dis­cus­sions on reg­u­la­to­ry prac­tices, in­clud­ing emerg­ing ar­eas such as ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence and AI ethics.

For gov­ern­ments, the or­gan­i­sa­tion brings to­geth­er de­vel­op­ment part­ners and oth­er stake­hold­ers that can as­sist with na­tion­al pri­or­i­ties.

Wankin said T&T is par­tic­u­lar­ly well po­si­tioned to ben­e­fit from fur­ther in­vest­ment be­cause of its ex­ist­ing con­nec­tiv­i­ty in­fra­struc­ture and es­tab­lished telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions mar­ket.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go is ripe for in­vest­ment,” she said, point­ing to the coun­try’s con­nec­tiv­i­ty and re­dun­dan­cy as strengths.

She al­so not­ed that the coun­try has ma­jor telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions op­er­a­tors, as well as small­er in­ter­net ser­vice providers and oth­er com­pa­nies that con­tribute to its dig­i­tal ecosys­tem.

Caribbean mar­ket draws grow­ing in­ter­est

De­spite the re­gion’s frag­men­ta­tion, Wankin said the Caribbean is at­tract­ing in­creas­ing in­ter­est from tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies and oth­er po­ten­tial in­vestors.

The CAN­TO ex­hi­bi­tion at this year’s con­fer­ence fea­tures 45 to 50 ex­hibitors, with more than 10 new ex­hibitors join­ing the event.

For Wankin, the growth of de­mand for ex­hi­bi­tions space ev­i­dence that com­pa­nies out­side the re­gion see op­por­tu­ni­ties in the Caribbean.

“We might be small is­land de­vel­op­ing states, but when you put us all to­geth­er, we’re over 144 mil­lion peo­ple. So, the re­gion is very, very at­trac­tive right now,” she said.

The an­nu­al ex­hi­bi­tion is de­signed to con­nect Caribbean op­er­a­tors and de­ci­sion-mak­ers with tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies of­fer­ing new prod­ucts and ser­vices.

Wankin said the ben­e­fit is prac­ti­cal. Op­er­a­tors can ex­plore tech­nol­o­gy that can help ad­dress chal­lenges with­in their net­works, while gov­ern­ments can iden­ti­fy po­ten­tial part­ners to sup­port na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment pri­or­i­ties.

The same prin­ci­ple ex­tends to CAN­TO’s work be­yond telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion has been ex­pand­ing part­ner­ships with en­ti­ties in the fi­nan­cial and en­er­gy sec­tors, recog­nis­ing that dig­i­tal con­nec­tiv­i­ty can­not be sep­a­rat­ed from oth­er crit­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture.

CAN­TO has es­tab­lished part­ner­ships with or­gan­i­sa­tions in­clud­ing the Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion of Banks and the Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion of Elec­tric Com­pa­nies.

Wankin said the three ar­eas telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions, fi­nance and en­er­g­yare close­ly con­nect­ed.

“Con­nec­tiv­i­ty and pow­er and fi­nance go hand in hand,” she said.

Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­nies re­quire ac­cess to fi­nanc­ing for ma­jor in­fra­struc­ture projects, while re­li­able elec­tric­i­ty is es­sen­tial for main­tain­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions net­works. The re­la­tion­ship be­comes even more im­por­tant in a re­gion that is vul­ner­a­ble to hur­ri­canes and oth­er nat­ur­al dis­as­ters.

CAN­TO is al­so work­ing to ex­pand ac­cess to train­ing. Wankin high­light­ed the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing with Cours­era, which is in­tend­ed to pro­vide peo­ple across the Caribbean with ac­cess to on­line train­ing and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

She said the ini­tia­tive would al­low in­di­vid­u­als to learn new skills from their homes and gain qual­i­fi­ca­tions in emerg­ing ar­eas.

For a re­gion seek­ing to strength­en its dig­i­tal econ­o­my, Wankin be­lieves de­vel­op­ing peo­ple is just as im­por­tant as de­vel­op­ing in­fra­struc­ture.

Har­ness­ing Caribbean tal­ent

The need for in­vest­ment be­comes even more ap­par­ent when the re­gion faces nat­ur­al dis­as­ters.

Caribbean telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions op­er­a­tors reg­u­lar­ly have to re­store net­works fol­low­ing hur­ri­canes and oth­er ma­jor events, re­quir­ing sig­nif­i­cant ex­pen­di­ture on in­fra­struc­ture, equip­ment and re­cov­ery.

Wankin high­light­ed CAN­TO’s dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness and risk man­age­ment work, which brings mem­bers to­geth­er to co­or­di­nate their re­sponse to emer­gen­cies.

One of the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s strengths, she said, is the will­ing­ness of com­pet­ing telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­nies to co­op­er­ate dur­ing dis­as­ters.

In Ja­maica, for ex­am­ple, op­er­a­tors such as Dig­i­cel, Flow and Lib­er­ty work to­geth­er to re­store con­nec­tiv­i­ty and pro­vide tem­po­rary cell sites when com­mu­ni­ties are af­fect­ed.

Wankin said the spir­it of co­op­er­a­tion ex­tends be­yond in­di­vid­ual coun­tries and is re­flect­ed across CAN­TO’s mem­ber­ship.

“When it’s a dis­as­ter, like when we had COVID, every­one came to­geth­er,” she re­called.

The same col­lab­o­ra­tive ap­proach, she said, can be ap­plied to broad­er dig­i­tal de­vel­op­ment.

T&T, in par­tic­u­lar, has sig­nif­i­cant tal­ent and in­no­va­tion, but Wankin be­lieves more can be done to con­nect the dif­fer­ent pock­ets of ex­per­tise and turn them in­to a stronger na­tion­al dig­i­tal ecosys­tem.

She point­ed to CAN­TO’s in­no­va­tion awards, which pro­vide op­por­tu­ni­ties for com­pa­nies and in­no­va­tors across the re­gion, in­clud­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go, to show­case their work.

The coun­try al­so has a strong foun­da­tion for fur­ther dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion, with es­tab­lished telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions op­er­a­tors, in­ter­net ser­vice providers and oth­er tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies.

Wankin said the chal­lenge is to bring those dif­fer­ent ca­pa­bil­i­ties to­geth­er.

“We have sev­er­al pock­ets of in­no­va­tion. But it’s to har­ness that and bring it to­geth­er for the bet­ter­ment of the coun­try,” she said.

She be­lieves the on­go­ing de­vel­op­ment of a dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion frame­work for T&T could help pro­vide greater co­or­di­na­tion.

Ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence and da­ta cen­tres are al­so like­ly to form part of the coun­try’s dig­i­tal fu­ture. Wankin said AI has sig­nif­i­cant po­ten­tial to ben­e­fit T&T, but the tech­nol­o­gy must be de­ployed re­spon­si­bly.

“Ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence in it­self is very good. It could be used for good, and it could be used for bad, like every­thing else,” she said.

The ques­tion, she sug­gest­ed, is not sim­ply whether the tech­nol­o­gy should be adopt­ed, but how and where it is im­ple­ment­ed and whether the ben­e­fits reach cit­i­zens.

For CAN­TO, the broad­er ob­jec­tive is to en­sure that the Caribbean does not de­vel­op its dig­i­tal fu­ture in iso­la­tion.