Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez has invited Caribbean countries to use the country’s Simon Bolivar (Venesat-1) satellite, which entered operations in January and covers the island region, reports BNamericas. Chavez added that, in partnership with his close ally Cuba, it was his aim to implement satellite-based tele-medicine, tele-education, internet access, social services, and mobile telephony programmes covering the whole region. Science and technology minister Jesse Chacon emphasised that Venesat-1 will enable the provision of telephony, high speed internet and TV services in isolated areas in Venezuela and will also be instrumental in the implementation of tele-medicine and tele-education programmes. The minister said work had begun to connect all university branches in the country with their main campuses via the satellite, and there were plans to connect hospitals in Caracas with small medical centres in remote southern areas. Uruguay is also entitled to use Venesat-1 for research purposes.

Chacon also announced that the state is undertaking a project to deploy a free public Wi-Fi mesh network covering 50 square kilometres in the city of Barquisimeto, the Lara state capital. Hotspots would initially be used principally by students and for tracing vehicles. Chacon inaugurated one of 50 digital access centres planned for Lara this year.

Source: TeleGeography.

Pan-Caribbean wireless group Digicel has reported its first net profit since its launch in 2001. Digicel, which comprises mobile phone operations in 31 markets across the Caribbean, Pacific and Latin America, recorded a net profit of USD41 million in the twelve months to 31 March 2009, compared to a loss of USD74 million in the previous year. ‘It is an important landmark for us,’ Digicel’s chief executive Colm Delves told The Irish Times. At a pre-tax level, Digicel posted a profit of USD113 million compared with a loss of USD48 million in the previous period. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) reached USD680 million, a 34% increase year-on-year. Revenues rose by 11% to USD1.73 billion, while its subscriber base was up 34% to 9.2 million. The company’s net debt at the end of March was USD2.7 billion.

Source: TeleGeography.

The mobile market in the Caribbean & Latin America further polarised towards GSM technology in Q2 2008, as the total number of customers using the technology and its 3G derivative W-CDMA increased by 6.9% to almost 360m. At the end of June 2008, the GSM/W-CDMA base made up 86.3% of the regional total, up from 84.6% three months earlier.

Most of the ground was given up by the CDMA base, which decreased in size by more than 5% in the quarter to under 48m.

The last 12 months have seen the advent of W-CDMA-based 3G networks across Latin America, with services now commercial in 12 markets in the region. Launches took place in three new markets in the quarter, including Brazil, where numbers were already almost 1m at the end of August after just three months. As far as Q2 is concerned, total customer numbers increased by 67.5% to almost 1.25m (the majority at this time coming from Mexico) which represents an annual improvement of over 1000%.

The introduction of W-CDMA has added to the effect of the continued rise of GSM and slowed the increase in numbers of 3G CDMA EV-DO connections considerably, the base levelling out at around 2.8m across the region.

Source: Cellular News.

The CDMA Development Group (CDG) has announced that CDMA subscribers grew to more than 431 million, and CDMA2000 grew to more than 417 million during last year. The Asia-Pacific (APAC) region added the most net subscribers, and Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) grew the fastest by percentage.

CDMA2000 subscribership among the 250 networks worldwide grew 16% in 2007, including strong sales figures for broadband EV-DO devices and services. The EV-DO subscriber base grew from 55 million to 90.5 million in 2007, achieving a compound annual growth rate of more than 64%.

APAC and North America claimed the majority of customers, with 49% and 32% of the global market, respectively. APAC added 6.2 million in Q4 2007 to reach 211 million subscribers, making it the largest net growth region in the world. North America alone has more than 137 million CDMA subscribers. APAC and EMEA saw the greatest year-over-year growth, with 24% and 60%, respectively. Other highly-concentrated regions for CDMA are India with more than 61 million subscribers, China with 42 million, and Indonesia with 14 million. In addition, more and more operators in emerging countries are reaching the one-million CDMA subscriber mark. For example, Angola's Movicel, Morocco's WANA, Starcomms of Nigeria, PTCL in Pakistan, Sudatel and Yemen Mobile all saw subscribership race past this milestone in 2007.

The CDG also noted that 2007 also saw an explosion in the availability of both low- and high-end devices. More than 350 devices were introduced on a commercial basis. Today, more than 82 very low-end (VLE) CDMA2000 handsets (under US$50 wholesale) are available globally from 19 suppliers.

Perhaps most important to the designation of 2007 as a critical year for CDMA is the number of CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Revision A (Rev. A) deployments that took place. At the beginning of the year, only three operators had deployed Rev. A technology. Now, 26 operators worldwide have upgraded to Rev. A and another 31 operators are in the process of upgrading. Operators with working Rev. A networks have witnessed a substantial increase in their data revenue.

In addition, CDMA has found a home in new spectrum allocations. China Unicom made a successful bid to operate 3G in Macau and rolled-out its first CDMA2000 1xEV-DO network there in October. PCCW-HKT Telephone won a 15-year license to deploy and operate CDMA2000 in the 800 MHz band in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, several operators in the United States are considering CDMA2000 to offer Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) in the 1.7/2.1 GHz frequency band.

On the 450 and 700 MHz fronts, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) reached a decision to use the two bands for 3G and next-generation mobile services.

Source: Cellular News.

Source: Cellular News, based on report by DIRSI (Regional Dialogue on the Information Society).