Grand Bahama Island ﾖ Bahamas – Capitalizing on the growing number of tourists visiting the Caribbean and the challenges of increasing revenue per mobile unit will be the focus of mobile telecom providers when CARICAM’s annual mobile conference begins here on November 7.
During the 4 day conference, executives from telecom operators, regulatory entities, consultancies, solution providers and research services will discuss the mobile growth in the region. The meeting “CARICAM Mobile 2005” is organized by IBC and will also discuss the future for regional telecommunications infrastructure to supply tourisms rising demand.
According to conference manager, Luciana Guiotti, Caribbean subscribers’ total base has grown rapidly, reaching over 10.8 million at the end of March 2005 (28,28% growth YoY).
“The Caribbean and Central America mobile market offers tremendous growth potential to be now tapped”, she said. A study released in March by Signals Consulting reinforce the idea, taking into consideration the rising revenues of roaming services for visitors arriving from Europe or the US and Canada.
“Caribbean mobile operators interested in increasing their roaming revenues will start considering focalized network deployments that will allow them to provide roaming services to US & European visitors that utilize different technologies in their home markets,” affirm Jose F. Otero, president and founder at Signals Consulting. The executive will speak at the CariCam Mobile 2005.
The conference schedule was organized by topics, and the first day will concentrate discussions on the regulatory and policy developments. Philip Cross, representative from ITU for the Caribbean, will address the opening speech on the harmonization of the regulatory environment. The speakersﾴ line up for this day also includes Bernadette Lewis, secretary general at CTU, Michelle Grell, senior policy, pricing and research analyst at TATT, Regenie Fraser, secretary general at Canto, C. Courtney Jackson, deputy director general at OUR (Jamaica), Clovis Baptista, executive secretary at CITEL, Carlos Hirsch, regulatory director at IUSACELL (Mexico) and Robinson Pena, director of regulatory affairs and Jennifer S. Ullman, associate director ﾖ international public policy & regulatory affairs, both from Verizon.
The second day will offer to attendees a practical workshop on exploiting successfully the convergence of fixed and mobile services, led by Omnitele and the European operator Manx Telecom (Isle of Man). On the third day, presentations will contemplate issues on the network evolution and migration strategies, next generation wireless networks, VAS strategies to increase revenue and pricing strategies, including operator presentations from Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic and Jamaica.
The last day will show 8 case studies from operators such as Verizon Dominicana, BTL Belize, Centennial Dominicana, Telesur Suriname, Sprint PCS, APUA PCS Antigua, Cable & Wireless West Indies and Batelco Bahamas, and the audience will have the opportunity to share experiences in mobile content and mobile entertainment strategies to increase revenue, and the mobile roaming ﾖ one of the most request issues from the operators.
With the endorsement of Canto, CTU, CDG and 3G Americas, the “CariCam Mobile 2005” is organized by IBC, sponsored by Lucent, Axalto, Nortel, Alcatel, Syniverse, CellStar, Verisign, Comverse, PCS Wireless, Glenayre, Redknee, Cerillion, CWWUSA, Emida.
