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Students of Tavares Gardens Primary School in Kingston surfing the Internet. As schools and communities are outfitted with computers, Internet penetration in Jamaican has grown to more than half the population as at 2007.

Jamaica's Internet penetration has grown 20-fold in the last decade, and is now at 55 per cent, or 1.5 million users, according to the most recent global industry data compiled by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

Actual Internet subscription in 2007 was estimated at 85,000.

Eight years ago, in 2000, while the ITU posits no data for Internet subscriptions, penetration or usage was only 3.08 per cent.

Present stats

Now it's 55.27 per cent.

But while this spells commercial opportunity for local dotcoms trying to establish online businesses or sell their services to big companies and advertisers, lawmakers say nothing less than full coverage of Jamaica's 2.7 million population will satisfy them.

In setting that goal, Jamaica is seeking to equate with two regional trade partners, Barbados and Antigua, who are close to full coverage.

The fact that the market is growing, however, is enough of an edge, according to some Internet entrepreneurs, who now have a bigger audience to consume their services and products.

"You're going to see a lot more people online and a lot more activity, and that is what we want," said Ingrid Reilly, a local dot.com entrepreneur and host of a Caribbean tech news and trends blog called Silconcaribe.

Bargaining power

Internet penetration means more hits on the website and more bargaining power with advertisers looking for a little publicity, Reilly said.

The ITU's 55 per cent assessment of Jamaica's Internet penetration was to April 2007. With Jamaica's e-Learning project that spreads computers and Internet access to schools and communities islandwide, the numbers are expected to grow.

Jamaica has come a very far way from the 1990s when Internet penetration was around two per cent of the population.

But Barbados at 95 per cent, Bermuda at 74 per cent, Antigua, 72 per cent, and St Lucia at 66 per cent, are ahead.

More people surfing

Still, on a nominal basis, Jamaica has more people accessing the Internet than any of those islands, simply by virtue of population size.

The other four have populations ranging individually from 70,000 to 294,000; and combined 612,000 people.

Indeed, Jamaica's Internet usage is more than double the four countries' combined populations.

All five countries are tracking ahead of the average 41 per cent coverage across the Americas.

Clive Mullings, the minister of energy, and overseer of technology portfolio since last October, acknowledged the advances in technology made by his predecessor - the portfolio was held by Phillip Paulwell under the PNP administration - but says he plans to take Jamaica to a new level.

At just over half the population, he believes the current levels of penetration are unacceptable.

"That's right, we are going to seek a 100 per cent penetration," said Mullings, a lawyer by profession.

Mullings says the Government is fast-tracking the capabilities of wireless broadband by auctioning a 2.5 GHz spectrum to facilitate the expansion of wireless broad services.

The ITU's figures indicate that in 2000, the Caribbean had virtually no broadband users.

Coverage improved

Seven years later, in 2007, the coverage was somewhat improved, but levels remain low.

Jamaica, for example, has a 2.97 per cent coverage for broadband.

Barbados is well ahead with 20 per cent, and Bermuda 36 per cent.

Jamaica is also tracking well below the hemisphere, which is at 10 per cent penetration, according to the ITU numbers.

Big telecoms, Digicel Jamaica and Cable and Wireless Jamaica, are currently hunting spectrums for the introduction of wireless broadband to a consumer market - seen as the next growth area for communications firms.

The spectrums to be auctioned by the Spectrum Management Authority will allow deployment of WiMAX and 3G technology.

The SMA has so far refused to say when the auction will take place.

Ernest Smith, managing director of the SMA, says that the Government is hoping that the auctioning of the frequency will help to reduce the relatively high Internet service costs in Jamaica.

"The number of players will increase, creating more competition and that will drive down the cost," Smith said.

Broadband retails for about US$25 and more, but consumer wireless is not yet available to consumers, only companies.

Digicel is plugging $7 billion into its Jamaican operations this year, a significant portion of which it plans to invest in building out its broadband product once it secures a licence.

Reilly says that if Digicel lives up to its promise, then her industry could see real growth in the next few years, due to the expected increase in the number of users on the Internet which would lead to more hits on local websites.

"We are expecting a real boom between now and next year, especially if Digicel actually lives up to its promise of rolling out WiMAX," Reilly said.

Smith says that Jamaica's Internet penetration has faced two challenges throughout the years: most Jamaicans cannot afford computers; and the relative high cost of Internet subscription.

He says that the last government helped to reduce the cost of computers by removing the import duties.

The ISPs, he said, should consider adopting the model used by cellular phone providers, who subsidised phones to build up sales of handsets.

The ISPs should consider subsidising desktop and laptop computers, he said.

Digicel, which pioneered that business model in the ICT community here, has already announced that it plans to take a similar route with consumer wireless broadband.

richard.deane@gleanerjm.com