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Bermuda's Internet Access and Costs

How they compare in speed, price and competitiveness to those in USA, Canada and UK

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By Keith Archibald Forbes (see About Us) exclusively for Bermuda Online

To refer by e-mail to this file use "bermuda-online.org/internet" as your Subject

Introduction

Bermuda is substantially behind most of the other developed countries in Internet speed and value. As merely one example, compare the 101 Mbps (megabits per second), $99 a month service being offered to American residents by CableVision-USA with the 1 Mbps service being offered by Bermuda companies for the same price. In Canada, the UK and Europe high-speed Broadband is the norm, not the exception. Even in the UK's more remote areas, such as the far north of Scotland, 8 Mbps unlimited service with BT is routinely available for £19.50 a month. In Jamaica, 15 Mbps is the norm and in the Bahamas 9 Mbps is standard. Bermuda presently offers one of the lowest speeds in the developed world and at a far higher price than elsewhere, with a maximum speed today of 4.5 Mbps to homes.

Logic Communications Ltd and others now offer the following, in upload speeds: The 4.5 Mbps service shown below by Logic and Transact is currently the fastest Internet domestic connection available in Bermuda.

Internet Service Providers (ISPs), residential and business

Compare the above to prices in USA, Canada, United Kingdom, Europe, Japan, for substantially higher Broadband or DSL upload speeds. 

In its 21 square miles, Bermuda has the following at home Internet Service Providers providing both DSL and much slower dial-up 56 Kbps services. 

Other factors in Bermuda as an electronic commerce center

Other Services include

Reforms suggested to current system

Current system

The four categories of telecommunications companies are:

Proposed reforms

After a three-year process of study and consultation, regulation of telecommunications in Bermuda is set to undergo significant reform.

Current telecommunications licensing system with three classes of licences will eventually - not before 2010 - be abolished in favour of a new general Communications Licence, to better foster competition among a variety of service providers. At the moment, there are three different licences for telecommunications providers which restrict providers from offering services outside their licence stipulations, although the provider may have the capacity to provide other services. International providers have Class A licences, while domestic telephone providers have Class B licences and Class C licences are issued for Internet Service Providers (ISPs), paging providers and other providers of miscellaneous services. With the new general Communications Licence, competition will be enhanced and industry innovation encouraged. Removing the licence barriers will allow head-to-head competition between small and large providers and hopefully balance out any market dominance larger providers may have at the moment.

The government will introduce a single Communications Licence that will allow all providers to compete with each other across the full service spectrum. 

Bermuda moved a step closer to this more competitive market place for internet and international telecommunications after Government offered a consortium of domestic companies a licence to install a new undersea cable connecting Bermuda and North America.  Initially, North Rock Communications, Transact and KeyTech - parent company of the Bermuda Telephone Company, joined together under the name Cable Company to apply for the new licence in September, 2007, to own and operate their own undersea telecoms cable as a way of by-passing the need to buy capacity from carriers Cable and Wireless and TeleBermuda International on existing cable networks. Once awarded, the licence enabled enabled the consortium to construct and operate a new submarine cable, connecting Bermuda to North America. A new undersea internet and telecommunications cable to end the current duopoly of Cable & Wireless and TeleBermuda International was completed and in April 2009 was ready to begin operations, but with North Rock and Transact no longer as two of the partners, instead now as customers. The new cable is 100 percent Bermudian owned. It has the ability to carry telecommunications traffic 10 times the capacity of that currently used.

  Will it mean cheaper and faster internet prices? It is hoped so.

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Last Updated: July 1, 2009
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