Roundup: ITU, Indotel, NP, GT&T

The International Telecommunications Union ( ITU) has concluded a series of meetings regarding how to speed up reconstruction of Haiti's telecommunications and ICT infrastructure destroyed in the January 12 earthquake, with delegates pledging financial and other types of support to a trust fund for Haiti to be set up within ITU, the union said in a statement. A high-level round table on the topic concluded on July 1 in Needham's Point, Barbados. ITU secretary general Hamadoun Toure commented that communications solutions ranging from satellite terminals and WiMax broadband to a mobile base station for wireless communications had already been deployed. Participants included the Inter-American Telecommunication Commission (CITEL), the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU) and the Caribbean Association of National Telecommunication Organizations (CANTO). Telecommunications regulatory authorities and development banks such as the World Bank and Caribbean Development Bank were also represented. *** The Dominican Republic's telecoms regulator Indotel, the higher education ministry (Mescyt) and a series of local universities have signed an agreement to establish an internet network to connect educational institutions throughout the country, Indotel said in a statement. The Dominican education and investigation advanced network (Radei) will be designed to transport large amounts of information in a secure and reliable environment. The network will connect with other similar networks including Caribbean educational research network C@ribNET, Clara, Internet 2 and the European Geant and is designed to create a critical mass of academics researching and sharing content. The Radei project includes a 24-month pilot phase during which a clearer development plan will be drawn up and other institutions will have the opportunity to provide financing. Indotel is responsible for financing only the pilot phase. *** Starting from July 1, telecoms customers in the Dominican Republic will no longer have to pay the 80 Dominican-peso (US$2.16) fee for porting their numbers to another operator, telecoms regulator Indotel said in a statement. The country introduced number portability (NP) last September 30 and gave service providers until June 30 to recoup their investments through the 80-peso per port charge. *** Guyana's head of the presidential secretariat, Roger Luncheon, has welcomed "recent advances" in the telecommunications sector including the launch of DSL internet by incumbent GT&T, the Guyana government information agency said on its website The DSL deployment is part of GT&T's Emagine project, which also includes mobile monitoring and gaming, all of which is being made possible by the 1,240km Suriname-Guyana Submarine Cable System (SG-SCS) that is linking the two countries via a fiber optic cable. Luncheon said the project would lead to a considerable reduction in the cost of bandwidth, benefitting banks and companies.