PUBLIC LAUGH AND COMPLAIN, ABOUT DEAN BARROW´S INTERNET OFFERING IN BELIZE.

El Caudillo Dean Barrow ( PM ) of Belize INTERNET OFFERING CRITICIZED AS TOO LITTLE.

"PATHETIC",- KEEPING BELIZE INTERNET AVAILABILITY AT THE BOTTOM OF WORLD INTERNET SPEEDS AND BANDWIDTH. WE SHOULD GET 20 MEGA BYTE SPEEDS FOR THE SAME $24.95 USA





From: Lan Sluder
To: Belize Culture
Sent: Friday, September 23, 2011 8:23 AM
Subject: Bz-Culture: What the PM said about internet in Belize

So ... what the PM actually said in his Independence Day speech was that BTL would now offer 128 Kbps internet service at US24.50/BZ$49 a month, and that the GST on internet would be dropped.

That's a start, but it's still pathetic and keeps Belize near the bottom of the world in bandwidth per dollar. 128 Kb (note that it's Kb per second down, not Mb) is basically dial-up speed from the 1990s. Many countries in Europe, Asia and North America get 5 to 20 Mbps down for roughly that same 25 bucks. All the countries in Central America have faster speeds and higher internet penetration than Belize.

Mean *average* speeds in a few selected countries (source: netindex.com):

Lithuania 33.4 Mbps
South Korea 28.7
Iceland (same population as Belize) 19.8
Germany 15.5
U.S. 11.8
Canada 11.5
Aruba 8.5
Ghana 5.7
Jamaica 4.4
Mexico 4.3
Cayman Islands 3.6
Zimbabwe 3.0
Nicaragua 2.5
Honduras 2.3
Costa Rica 2.1
Guatemala 1.9
Haiti 1.5

Belize cannot compete internationally until it faces up to the need to provide high speed internet at reasonable prices. Since the GOB now owns BTL it can act to require BTL to help Belize compete by offering competitive internet.

--Lan Sluder