Dominican Republic steps up efforts to expand fixed and mobile broadband
The Dominican Republic’s telecom regulator, Indotel, has made great strides since 2007 to invigorate the broadband sector. It has implemented a range of initiatives to extend the provision of broadband to rural areas, among the more ambitious being the Rural Broadband Connectivity Project which affected some 1.5 million people across 16 provinces. A number of secondary initiatives have fined tuned and further developed rural broadband availability, while the regulator recently began working on a public-private partnership aimed at building a nationwide fibre-optic network, to be part-funded by the World Bank.
On a different tack, the government recently passed legislation (National Development Strategy) which released the digital dividend 700MHz band for mobile services. The move followed the regulator’s 2011 National Frequency Allocation (PNAF), and has resulted in a tripling of spectrum allocated for mobile services. The band complements 2.3GHz and 3.4GHz frequencies which already serve the mobile sector, while available spectrum in the AWS and 900MHz bands will be made available depending on market demand.
Henry Lancaster,
Senior Analyst, Central America
For more information and analysis on the Dominican Republic’s telecom market, see the updated report Dominican Republic – Telecoms, IP Networks, Digital Media and Forecasts.
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