The Caribbean Association of National Telecommunications Organizations (Canto) has contracted a consultant to help structure its Connect the Caribbean (CTC) digital inclusion initiative and expects the project to really take off when the regional Connect the Americas initiative launches next year, Canto secretary general Regenie Frдser told BNamericas.

CTC forms part of Connect the World – a global initiative started at the 2005 World Summit on the Information Society, hosted by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) – which aims to have basic communications infrastructure in place in the poorest and most unconnected parts of the world by 2015.

The initiative is broken up into different sub-regions and CTC will fall under Connect the Americas. However, Canto has been working since 2008 to develop a series of initiatives of particular relevance to the Caribbean.

Last year the body drew up a roadmap narrowing initiatives down to three main projects, which are: establishing regional internet exchange points (IXPs) to facilitate regional traffic; setting up a regional e-business marketplace to encourage economic growth; and establishing a regional community content creation and youth project.

However, as different bodies such as the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU), Canto and the Caribbean Community (Caricom) have all had their hand in the initiatives, coordination has been difficult, Frдser said. For that reason an independent consultant has been contracted to bring some order to the program and deliver a report in August.

“The consultant will help us with all the project ideas and pull everything together in a concept paper. Then we will do a preparatory meeting before going to Connect the Americas where you will have all the funding agencies, suppliers, investors, etc,” Frдser said.

Nonetheless some progress has been made on the three areas.

The CTU has been taking on main responsibility for developing regional IXPs and at the end of May Grenada and the British Virgin Islands became the first two countries in the English speaking Caribbean to launch. Hosting information locally is seen as a means of bringing down international traffic costs for ISPs, speeding up traffic time and stimulating the development of local content.

As regards establishing a regional community and content creation and youth project, Canto organized a competition to create applications aimed at a Caribbean audience. Most of the winning entries had to do with entertainment. Sponsors of the competition like Ericsson (Nasdaq: ERIC) will now help those entrepreneurs monetize their apps.

With regard to setting up a regional e-business marketplace, a Suriname version has already been drafted but Canto is still seeking funding.

Another spinoff project of CTC is to provide laptop computers for schools. Canto is working with Canadian IP-based broadband wireless network solutions provider Wire IE, which is funding the supply of HP (NYSE: HPQ) laptops to primary schools in Grenada. Operators like Cable & Wireless Communications are also cooperating on such initiatives.

Canto has been trying to obtain direct funding from the European Union (EU) for the last few years for up to 86% of the cost of the first two years of CTC. Canto was initially seeking some US$1mn.

Now the organization is looking at other options such as the Caribbean Development Bank, the Center for Development of Enterprise (CDE), and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

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