Caribbean telecom roundup

Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC) will invest 7bn Jamaican dollars (US$59.4mn) in infrastructure and a new call center in the next year.

The call center will be established in Kingston and employ 400 people, managing director Garry Sinclair told the Jamaica Observer. It is expected to be completed by March 2016.

"We are renewing our vows with Jamaica," he said, "and to do so, we have to make a spirited effort and consequential investment to greatly enhance the island's telecoms landscape."

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Digicel is close to opening the largest data center in Trinidad and Tobago, with an overall capacity of 200 racks. The center will support SSAE SOC Type II and ISO27001 certification, focusing on the business processes and the security of the customer's data.

The center will offer a full range of cloud services, including off-site data storage that can be backed-up on island. When launched, the data center will provide near 100% availability and require no shutdowns for equipment replacement and maintenance.

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Dominican Republic telecom watchdog Indotel asked operators to urgently deploy the internet protocol IPv6 in the country, since the IPv4 currently in use is becoming obsolete worldwide.

The switch-off had been recommended by the watchdog in July 2014, but no upgrades have been made yet. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) decided to move up from IPv4 to IPv6 in 2010.

IPv6 is more suited for the growth of users, apps and devices, and will be critical in the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT).