Caribbean ICT watch: Puerto Rico, Dominican Rep, St Kitts and Nevis

The US Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) allocated US$5.78mn to Puerto Rico's plan for the development of high-speed internet services. 

The funding will be used to identify underserved locations, and to create an action plan and report assessing high-speed broadband service in the territory. 

Additionally, Puerto Rico will receive US$781,987 under the Digital Equity Act to fund the development of a digital equity plan to connect unserved and underserved populations and the development of strategies to close digital inclusion gaps, among other things. 

The grants are added to the Uniendo a Puerto Rico program of US regulator FCC, which has awarded companies like AT&T, T-Mobile and Claro US$238mn in a first round of funding for LTE 5G mobile infrastructure, local paper El Nuevo Día said. 

The commission also disbursed US$71.5mn to Liberty Puerto Rico for broadband infrastructure in 43 municipalities and another US$55.6mn to Claro to extend broadband infrastructure to 35 municipalities. 

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Dominican Republic university UFHEC and Spanish university UDG signed an agreement to start working on a research project to develop a submarine cable that will connect electricity markets in the Greater and Lesser Antilles and Venezuela, local press reported. 

"We will develop the different algorithms that will allow the creation of 3D roadmaps and global coordinates for the line," said Alberto Ramírez Cabral, principal at UFHEC.

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Telecom operator The Cable is set to roll out its fiber-to-the-home internet service in St Kitts and Navis, starting in Gillard Meadows.

The operator will offer speeds of up to 500Mbps. The new infrastructure, designed to offer up to 1Gbps, will replace the old hybrid fiber coaxial (HFC) network. 

Following the installation in Gillard Meadows, the service will become available in New Road and the St Peter’s area in general, according to a press release published by SKNVibes.com.