Summary  
Dominican Republic-Telecoms, Mobile, Broadband and Forecasts, profiles the fixed-line, mobile and broadband markets in Dominican Republic.
Although enjoying a relatively modern and mostly digital telecom system, the Dominican Republic's 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 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 around 2%. Accordingly, investment in telecommunications and emerging services such as wireless broadband and VoIP continued to strengthen during 2009 and early 2010.
This report contains overviews, analyses and statistics of the Dominican Republic's fixed-line, mobile and broadband markets. The report also discussed convergence issues and provides forecasts of broadband and mobile phone subscriber growth.
Market highlights:
Internet use has grown rapidly in recent years. For instance, in 2009 Internet users grew 40% to over 3 million, more than double the number of users in Jamaica, its nearest Caribbean rival in terms of Internet user numbers.
In late 2009 Indotel announced that it would be adding another 1,000 communities to its target of providing voice and broadband services to rural parts of the country.
Despite the global economic downturn, investment in telecommunications continued to grow strongly, with an estimated $750 million invested during 2009 alone.
In January 2010, Indotel announced plans to install 100 free WiFi hotspots in over 100 communities across the country over the following two years, with at least one WiFi public access spot in each municipality.
While cell-phone subscriber growth remained in double digit figures during 2009, growth rates from 2010 are expected to continue to decline as penetration rates approach and exceed 100%.Lawrence Baker
March 2010
Data in this report is the latest available at the time of preparation and may not be for the current year.

Table of Contents
1. Executive summary  
2. Key statistics
2.1 Country Overview
3. Telecommunications market
3.1 Overview of the Dominican Republic's telecom market
4. Regulatory environment
4.1 Background
4.2 Regulatory authority
4.2.1 Instituto Dominicano de las Telecomunicaciones (Indotel)
4.3 Telecom sector liberalisation
4.4 Privatisation of Codetel
4.5 Foreign investment
4.6 Number portability
5. Major fixed network operators in the Dominican Republic
5.1 Overview
5.2 Codetel (formerly Verizon Dominicana)
5.3 Tricom
5.4 Dgtec
6. Telecommunications infrastructure
6.1 National telecom network
6.2 International infrastructure
6.2.1 Submarine cable networks
6.2.2 Satellite networks
6.3 Infrastructure developments
6.3.1 Wireless Local Loop (WLL)
6.3.2 IP and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)
7. Internet market
7.1 Overview
7.1.1 Internet statistics
8. Broadband market
8.1 Overview
8.2 Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL)
8.3 Cable modems
8.4 Wireless broadband
8.4.1 WiFi
8.4.2 WiMAX
8.4.3 Internet via satellite
9. Convergence
9.1 Overview
9.2 Digital switchover
9.3 Pay TV
9.4 IPTV
10. Cell phone (mobile phone) market
10.1 Overview of the Dominican Republic's cell phone market
10.1.1 Cell phone statistics
10.2 Major cell phone operators
10.2.1 Claro (formerly Verizon Dominicana)
10.2.2 Orange Dominicana
10.2.3 Tricom
10.2.4 VIVA (formerly Trilogy Dominicana)
10.3 Prepaid versus postpaid
10.4 Cellular data services
10.4.1 High capacity cellular voice/data services (1xRTT)
10.4.2 General Packet Radio Service (GPRS)
11. Forecasts
11.1 Forecast broadband subscribers
11.2 Forecast cellular subscribers
11.3 Notes on scenario forecasts
12. Related reports 
Table 1-Country statistics Dominican Republic-2010
Table 2-Telephone network statistics-2010
Table 3-Internet provider statistics-2010
Table 4-Internet user statistics-2010
Table 5-Cell phone statistics-2010
Table 6-National telecommunications authority
Table 7-Fixed lines in service and teledensity-2000-2010
Table 8-Public phone data-2000-2010
Table 9-WLL lines in service-1999-2010
Table 10-Internet users-2000-2010
Table 11-Internet subscribers-2000-2010
Table 12-DSL residential and corporate subscribers-2004-2010 
Table 13-Cell phone subscribers and penetration rate-2000-2010
Table 14-Postpaid and prepaid percentage of subscribers-2001-2010
Table 15-Forecast broadband subscribers-2009-2013
Table 16-Forecast cellular subscribers-lower growth scenario-2011-2015
Table 17-Forecast cellular subscribers-higher market scenario-2011-2015
Exhibit 1-Major submarine cable networks serving the Dominican Republic