Kirusa, a global leader in providing telecom & social media solutions, announced today the launch of its InstaVoice Celeb service in partnership with the telecommunications company VIVA, one of the leading mobile operators in the Dominican Republic. ‘Mark B’ is the first celebrity to participate in this innovative service provided by VIVA. The InstaVoice Celeb service is a bridge between celebrities and fans, with added voice interactions. By providing multiple communication modes, InstaVoice Celeb increases the quality of engagement between celebrities and their fans.

Mark B is a very popular urban music singer in Dominican Republic. In a very short time Mark B has become one of the most respected exponents of its kind for his performance quality and international image. Although enjoying a relatively modern and mostly digital telecom system, the Dominican Republics fixed-line teledensity is well below the Latin American average. Mobile penetration is nearly ten times higher than fixed-line teledensity, and is about average for Latin America.

The Dominican Republic’s income inequalities are still reflected in its telephone distribution; some people own multiple mobile phones each, yet there are communities comprising hundreds of families without access to a single phone line. The Dominican Republican government has been aggressively addressing the issue of access with a number of projects and a major broadband deployment partnership with the incumbent Codetel.

Although the global financial crisis took its toll on the economies of the Caribbean region, which contracted by an average of 2% during 2009, the Dominican Republic stood in stark contrast with positive growth of over 3%. Consequently, investment in telecommunications and emerging services such as wireless broadband has remained strong.

Considerable changes are expected in the mobile sector, with the anticipated auction of spectrum in the AWS and 900MHz bands which had been cancelled in 2011. Operators have launched commercial LTE services.
Consolidation in the sector was seen in late 2013 when Orange Group, having invested some $150 million in its local network, sold Orange Dominicana to Altice Group. At the same time, Altice group acquired the integrated telecoms services provider Tricom Telecom (both deals closed in 2014).

The analysis provides overviews, analyses and statistics of the Dominican Republics fixed-line, mobile and broadband markets. Analysis further looks into convergence issues and provides forecasts of broadband and mobile phone subscriber growth. It contains the regulators market data updates to September 2014, telcos financial and operating data to Q3 2014, and recent market developments.

Dominican Republic Key telecom parameters – 2014 (e)

Market penetration by service	Penetration
Broadband	5.1%
SIM penetration (population)	91.3%
Fixed-line telephony	12.5%

Market highlights:
Internet use has grown rapidly in recent years, far above the global and regional average.
The regulator, Indotel, has made progress in projecting voice and broadband services to rural parts of the country, soliciting funding from the World Bank to build a national fibre-optic network.

Despite the global economic downturn, investment in the telecoms sector has continued to grow strongly.
The regulator in early 2012 allocated digital dividend spectrum for mobile services, which will go far in extending services to underserved rural regions.

The MNO Orange Dominicana launched the first LTE network in the Dominican Republic in mid-2012, initially in Santo Domingo and offering peak data speeds of up to 100Mb/s. The operator has invested more than $150 million in expanding and upgrading its network.

In early 2012 the government passed Law 01-2012 (National Development Strategy) which released the digital dividend 700MHz band for mobile services. The country now has 818MHz allocated for mobile telephony and broadband compared to 270MHz in 2002.

Tricom during 2013 upgraded its LTE network, and has migrated its CDMA subscribers to the new platform. The operator was acquired by Altice Group in late 2013.

The government has distributed around one million decoders to help the transition to digital TV, part-funded by revenue from spectrum auctions.

Wind telecom in June 2014 contracted ZTE to build an LTE network.
The regulator in May 2014 auctioned spectrum in the 1700-2100MHz and 941-960MHz bands, which will go far to stimulating the mobile broadband sector.Henry Lancaster

Data used for the analysis is the latest available at the time of preparation and may not be for the current year.

The analysis made provides further information on:

• Market liberalisation and regulatory issues;
• The impact of the global economic crisis;
• Telecoms operators – privatisation, acquisitions, new licences;
• Mobile data market developments in coming years in light of spectrum auctions and new license awards;
• Mobile developments, regulatory issues and technologies including LTE;
• Broadband migration to an FttH architecture;
• Historical and current subscriber statistics and forecasts.