Caribbean Telecomm Roadshow makes pit stop in Belize
There is a Roadshow that is travelling throughout the Caribbean. It’s not an entertainment event for the family but a forum for stakeholders in the telecommunication industry. The Caribbean Telecommunications Union Secretary General says that the I.C.T. Roadshow is part of the organization’s twentieth anniversary celebration and Belize is the third stop on the twenty country tour. According to Bernadette Lewis of the Caribbean Telecommunication’s Union, the two day seminar in Belize is tailored to suit the requests of stakeholders in light of the new environment in the industry.
Bernadette Lewis, Sec Gen, Caribbean Telecommunications Union
“We are promoting the use—the innovative use of information and communication technologies for Caribbean development. We recognize that in the region, the Caribbean tends to be a consumer of technology, we don’t create. And we are encouraging creation of technology and of course innovative use of what we have. We invest significantly in information and communication technologies; but it is the view of the Caribbean Telecommunications Union that we are not realizing the full benefit and full potential of the technology we invest in. While we are in the different countries we are starting a number of initiatives that we hope will bear fruit even after we leave. The Roadshow is customized for each country so we work with the government and the other stakeholders in every country that we visit. So no two Roadshow is the same. Here in Belize we focused on the fact that the landscape in the telecommunication industry has changed somewhat and we are looking at new opportunities and we have taken the form of very a educational program for Belize where we will be pointing out what the opportunities are and the pitfalls that have to be avoided because of the new dynamic within the telecommunications sector. We are also looking at the establishment of an internet exchange point. I understand that in this market there are as much as forty internet service providers. When your service providers exchange traffic, that traffic essentially goes to Miami and then back down. That is an inefficient use and a costly use of facilities for traffic that should be exchanged at the domestic level. So that is one of the things that we are advocating and we are hoping we get the traction of the ISP’s in the market so that some point in time, later down the road, an internet exchange point can be established.”
The Roadshow finished today and Lewis says that there is a possibility that they may return in the future to address other business opportunities that would benefit from efficient use of telecommunications.
