BitDepth#1390

MARK LYNDERSAY

FOR MORE than a decade, there's been talk of another player in local telecommunications, despite a saturated market with three major players.

When Digicel and Massy Communications almost simultaneously launched new fixed broadband services in 2016, the clear winner was Digicel, who scooped entire neighbourhoods from under the noses of Massy's sales teams.

TSTT would eventually buy Massy's plant and assets in May 2017, rebranding it as Amplia. By October 2020, Massy would exit the ICT sector entirely, selling Massy Technology to Jamaica's PBS Technology.

But competition, even in this well-provisioned market, is on the horizon again and this time it's going to quite literally descend from above.

Elon Musk's satellite-based broadband service Starlink, a division of SpaceX, is composed of more than 1,900 active orbiting transmitters.

The company began launching its satellites into orbit in 2018, and continued launching them in regular monthly batches.

Think of a fishnet circling the globe, with each satellite as an interlocking knot, and you have a sense of how these orbiting devices will connect to each other to provide service across broad expanses of the planet's surface.

But there are quite a few holes, even as the company is positioning its services for mobile as well as fixed receivers.

There's an RV version for people living in mobile homes available in parts of the US and another it hopes to push for aircraft.

The company is promising service coverage in Trinidad and Tobago by the second quarter of 2023, according to a map of existing and planned service on its website.

The company does not have a licence to operate in this country, according to the Telecommunications Authority (TATT).

"Starlink has applied for a concession and associated licences to provide a fixed satellite-based internet service," TATT explained in an e-mailed response to questions.

"The Authority has made a recommendation to the Minister of Digital Transformation in accordance with conditions outlined in Section 21 (5) (6) and (7) of the Telecommunication Act Chap 47:31."

Under that regulation, the minister's decision is due over the next few weeks.

Satellite broadband solves the last persistent problem with local service coverage posed by geography and terrain.

There remain areas in the country that are too costly to wire and pose expensive problems for ground-based signal transmission. TATT has been unable to stoke interest in these edge case projects with its Universal Service Fund.

Satellite delivery solves the problems of cost of infrastructure and the limited capacity to recoup it in sparsely populated regions.

In their response, TATT acknowledged this value proposition, "The Authority has no objection to the use of satellite technology, mindful of the benefits satellite delivery can bring to certain segments of our population, including