The top lo­cal telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions reg­u­la­tor has un­der­scored the coun­try's com­mit­ment to deep­en­ing the pen­e­tra­tion of broad­band ac­cess in T&T, even though the coun­try re­mains with­out a 4G/LTE op­er­a­tor near­ly two years af­ter the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Au­thor­i­ty (TATT) rec­om­mend­ed that two li­cences should be award­ed.

CEO of TATT Cris Seecher­an spoke in favour of uni­ver­sal ac­cess to broad­band in T&T in a state­ment pro­mot­ing the au­thor­i­ty's host­ing of the 2016 Caribbean Broad­band Fo­rum.

The fo­rum will be or­gan­ised by the Com­mon­wealth Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Or­gan­i­sa­tion (CTO) and is due to be held on Ju­ly 14 and 15 at the Hy­att Re­gency ho­tel in Port-of-Spain.

Seecher­an said: "Trinidad & To­ba­go is com­mit­ted to uni­ver­sal ac­cess to broad­band, as we recog­nise the im­por­tant con­tri­bu­tion fast and re­li­able ac­cess to the In­ter­net makes to our eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment. Since this event is open to all Caribbean is­lands and not just mem­bers of the Com­mon­wealth, it will be an op­por­tu­ni­ty to col­lec­tive­ly ad­dress some of the com­mon chal­lenges we still face, and so we look for­ward to wel­com­ing del­e­gates from the whole re­gion in Ju­ly." TATT is re­spon­si­ble for de­vel­op­ing a world-class com­pet­i­tive telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions and broad­cast­ing in­fra­struc­ture, vi­tal to the eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment of T&T. The or­gan­i­sa­tion's vi­sion is to be­come a glob­al ex­em­plar in telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions and broad­cast­ing reg­u­la­tion.

Late last month, se­nior coun­sel Gilbert Pe­ter­son yes­ter­day re­signed from his po­si­tion as di­rec­tor on the board of Guardian Me­dia Ltd (GML) fol­low­ing the an­nounce­ment that he was nom­i­nat­ed to head the TATT board.

The fo­rum ex­pects to deep­en the pen­e­tra­tion of broad­band ac­cess to Caribbean peo­ple, said Shola Tay­lor, Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al of the CTO.

"We un­der­stand the pe­cu­liar chal­lenges faced by most coun­tries of the re­gion, not least the grow­ing spill over of broad­cast­ing au­di­ences em­brac­ing on-de­mand view­ing al­ter­na­tives over broad­band net­works. Nev­er­the­less, broad­band ac­cess should be a right for all, not a priv­i­lege of a few, and so this event is part of our ef­forts to help ac­cel­er­ate uni­ver­sal broad­band ac­cess for all Caribbean cit­i­zens."

On av­er­age, coun­tries of the Caribbean do not marked­ly dif­fer from the rest of the world with an av­er­age fixed broad­band pen­e­tra­tion of 12 per cent. How­ev­er, with an av­er­age 27 per cent mo­bile broad­band pen­e­tra­tion, the re­gion is sig­nif­i­cant­ly be­low the world av­er­age of 41 per cent, said a state­ment on the CTO's web­site.

The fo­rum is ex­pect­ed to ad­dress chal­lenges and op­por­tu­ni­ties for broad­band in the Caribbean, in­clud­ing:

�2 im­pact of broad­band ac­cess on the eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment of the re­gion

�2 progress on na­tion­al broad­band plans

�2 reg­u­la­to­ry fac­tors af­fect­ing broad­band ac­cess in spe­cif­ic Caribbean coun­tries

�2 long-haul and last mile so­lu­tions, in­clud­ing 4G/LTE

�2 in­fra­struc­ture fi­nanc­ing broad­band ap­pli­ca­tions, IoT and Big Da­ta, and spec­trum op­por­tu­ni­ties

The CTO said in the state­ment: "The pos­i­tive im­pact of broad­band ac­cess on eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment is wide­ly ev­i­denced glob­al­ly, and as with oth­er re­gions of the world, most Caribbean coun­tries have adopt­ed spe­cif­ic broad­band poli­cies, or at least poli­cies with tar­gets for broad­band, in or­der to ac­cel­er­ate ac­cess to broad­band con­nec­tiv­i­ty by all.

How­ev­er, im­ple­ment­ing such poli­cies re­quires sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic as well as pri­vate sec­tor in­vest­ment." The CTO has been ac­tive­ly pro­mot­ing broad­band over the past 10 years with­in and be­yond the Caribbean.

For the Caribbean 2016 event, the CTO has been pledged ac­tive sup­port from re­gion­al or­gan­i­sa­tion Caribbean Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Union as sup­port­ing part­ner.