(Trinidad Guardian) As of September 2016, there were in excess of two million mobile subscribers in a population of 1.4 million people in T&T.
The figure was given by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley as he delivered the feature address yesterday at the opening ceremony of the Regional Standardisation Forum for Bridging the Standardisation Gap at the Parliament Building, Port-of-Spain, attended by Telecommunications Authority of T&T (TATT) chairman Gilbert Peterson, SC, TATT’s CEO Dr John Prince and participants from Latin America and Caribbean.
The forum will see delegates sharing ideas and discussing matters on information and communication technologies (ITCs) until March 10.
But while mobile subscribers had been increasing, Prince said TATT had not been addressing complaints that are reported to them.
Among the complaints would be internet, cellphone and cable users.
While attending the World Mobile Congress in Spain last week, Prince said what caught his eye was a project from Japan.
“We have a similar project that we have in Tobago, but for heaven’s sake… Trinidad not adopting it.”
Prince said Japan has a little software, which processes 20,000 complaints in nine hours.
“We in Tobago we only do a little 20 and 30 in a couple of days.”
Prince said this was one area Government should encourage.
Having attended the 28th international meeting at the Conference of the Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community in Guyana last month, Rowley said his fellow leaders had approved a draft road map for the region’s single information and communication technology space which would allow harmonized policies, legislation, regulations and technical standards.
He said they expects this space would create affordable networks to Caribbean consumers and businesses, which would be critical in accelerating the implementation of the Caricom Single Market and Economy and enhance economic development in the region.
From a T&T’s perspective, Rowley said, his Government sees the ITC sector as a critical part towards a national development programme that will help improve the quality of life for every T&T citizen.
“High on our agenda is enhancing digital literacy and developing the skills to enable productivity and innovation in our population. So while we invest in networks, infrastructure and markets we also have to invest in human beings. An E-ready country necessitates that ITC must be seen as tools to be used as all aspect of social, educational and business life.”
He said ITC has to be seen not only as using computers and to manipulate software, but a mechanism to provide solutions to complex problems.
In outlining statistics obtained from TATT’s September 2016 market report, Rowley said there were 282,000 fixed lined internet subscriptions which represented a penetration rate of 66 per cent of all households.
Rowley said mobile subscriptions had “exceed two million with a penetration of 135 per cent of the population.”
Gross revenue derived from mobile services, Rowley said was $623 million in 2016, while paid TV subscriptions was 204,000 which has a penetration of under 50 per cent.
