Ja's Internet growth among highest

Saturday, November 21, 2009 5:44 AM

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Estimate now place Internet penetration at near 50 per cent

By Steven Jackson Business writer jacksons@jamaicaobserver.com

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Jamaica's growth in internet penetration over the five years to 2008 was the sixth highest amongst the 35 listed nations in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the Information Economy Report 2009 published last month by United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

Jamaica also ranked 22nd in the Americas, which includes North America, Latin America and the Caribbean in terms of mobile subscriber penetration at 78.97 per cent of the Jamaican population, or 2.1 million.

The report published October 22, did not give an overall country ranking but had subcategory ranking for internet, mobile and information communication technology (ICT) trade.

Roughly half the Jamaican population now use the internet according to the report, which represents a 22.13 percentage point rise since 2003 (from 25.5 per cent to 47.65 per cent).

The countries with faster percentage point growth were Argentina at 35.27, Columbia at 28.09, Antigua at 27.67, Barbados at 24.1 and St Kitts at 23.8.

The Information Economy Report 2009 was prepared by a team comprising Torbjörn Fredriksson (team leader), Cécile Barayre, Scarlett Fondeur Gil, Rémi Lang, Irina Stanyukova and Marie Triboulet (intern) under the overall guidance of Mongi Hamdi.

Despite the relatively high Internet penetration in Jamaica, few are fixed broadband users at 3.42 for every 100 inhabitant in 2007, according to the 134-page report.

This, however, is coming from a low of 0.38 per 100 inhabitants in 2003. Jamaica's broadband penetration would have benefited from the licence awarded in 2005 to Columbus Communications, which operates in Jamaica as Flow, to land fibre cable in Jamaica.

Prior, Cable & Wireless controlled the main fibre-optic cable.

The report stated that competition was the reason for increased broadband penetration amongst nations.

"Some developing countries are showing signs of success with broadband implementation. Bahamas, for example, boasts the second highest broadband penetration among developing nations in the Americas region and some 80 per cent of its households access the Internet using broadband. This is the result of intense intermodal broadband competition between the incumbent telecommunications operator the Bahamas Telecommunications Corporation and newcomer Cable Bahamas," the report stated.

The UNCTAD report stated that there were an estimated 1.4 billion Internet users around the world at the end of 2008.

The number of users grew five times faster in developing than in developed countries, "the former now account for more than half of the world total", it stated. China hosted the largest number of users (298 million), followed by the United States (191 million) and Japan (88 million). A little over one fifth of the world's population used the Internet in 2008. However, wide gaps remain. "While more than half the population in the developed world is now online, the corresponding share is on average only 15-17 per cent in developing and transition economies," the report stated.

The report also stated that Jamaica has an ICT trade deficit of US$617.5 million in 2007 according to data from the report analysed by the Business Observer.

Jamaica exported US$312 million worth of Information Technology (IT) and ICT services whilst importing US$929.9 million, the report stated. Jamaica had the eighth highest IT and ICT service imports across Latin - and the Caribbean but had the 15th highest exports in the Latin America and the Caribbean.

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