Telcom Haiti, tough cell visit - who can help
Everett Batey
EXTRACT: FROM Wikipedia -- Telcom Haiti (GSM and CDMA) Page Search down to "Telephones - mobile cellular"
Telephones - mobile cellular: 2.4 million (May 2007) or 30% coverage rate.
There are three major cell phone providers in Haiti: Digicel, Comcel, and Haitel.
Comcel, a subsidiary of Trilogy International Partners LLC, was a TDMA company which launched its service in September 1999. Haitel, an independent company founded by Franck Ciné, a Haitian-American and former MCI/Worldcom executive, adopted CDMA technology. Digicel Haiti, an affiliate of the pan-Caribbean Digicel Group won Haiti's first GSM license in June 2005 and launched service in early 2006.
In May 2006, Comcel and Haitel had a total of about 500,000 subscribers - that is a cell phone coverage rate of 6% for a population of 8.2 million. Then, Digicel entered the market in May 2006, and revolutionized the cell phone industry with low prices and attractive services so that after just one year of operations, May 2006-May 2007, Digicel went from zero to 1.4 millions subscribers. The other two cell phone providers, Comcel and Haitel, responded by cutting their prices and offering new services such as Voila, a GSM service by Comcel, and CDMA 2000 by Haitel. As a result, Comcel and Haitel increased their subscribers from 500,000 to 1 million. That's a grand total of 2.4 millions cell phone subscribers in Haiti. For a total population of about 8.2 million people, that's a cell phone coverage rate of 30% (a 5-fold increase in just one year) In May 2007, Digicel started offering two Blackberry services with Internet, one for enterprises and one for individuals.
Telephone system: Domestic facilities are barely adequate. International facilities are slightly better
domestic: coaxial cable and microwave radio relay trunk service
international: satellite earth station - 1 Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean)
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