British Virgin Islands with high expectations on LTE roll-out

Telecom companies in the British Virgin Islands have promised that through their LTE networks, they will implement and offer very high speed mobile broadband to business and residential consumers by early 2017.

Pressure is on telcos, as Mark Vanterpool, minister of communication and works, expects major improvements in the islands' broadband services following the awarding of spectrum in the 700MHz, 1900MHz and AWS bands to CCT, Digicel, and Flow.

"As minister for communications and works, I want to put the providers on notice that I will be closely watching as well," local daily BVI News quoted the minister as saying.

Vanterpool mentioned that in addition to overseeing the roll-out, he will make sure that super fast broadband and LTE are affordable to consumers, and that the service is reliable.

According to the minister, the first phase of the LTE network deployment should provide speeds of up to 48-50MBs, a significant improvement from the "less than three we get on a good day." Later phases of the LTE roll-out should deliver 100MBs or more, Vanterpool noted.

LTE service is also expected to be deployed in Virgin Gorda and other islands, said Vanterpool, adding that mobile phone penetration in the British Virgin Islands is at an all-time high, and broadband penetration has been steadily increasing.