Summary
Panama's telecom market is one of the most advanced in Central America. With the region's second-highest GDP growth forecast for 2009, plus two new competitors entering the mobile market, the outlook is promising for mobile telephony in Panama.
Until December 2008, Telefónica's Movistar and C&WP's +Movil were the only mobile operators in Panama, vying neck-and-neck for market share. But their duopoly has come to an end with the market entry of Digicel and America Movil's Claro.
In basic telephony, on the other hand, competition has been slower to develop; the incumbent Cable & Wireless Panama (C&WP) still controls around 86% of the country's fixed lines in service, but the long distance sector is highly competitive.
Compared with the rest of Central America, Panama's fixed-line teledensity is about 11% higher than the regional average, which is consistent with the country's economic indicators, while mobile penetration is 33% higher.
Panama's geographical position and connection to numerous submarine cables have made it a burgeoning business hub and strategic location for telecom companies and Internet Data Centres. The country's broadband market has the highest broadband penetration in Central America.
Key Highlights
*Mobile number portability is to be implemented in Panama by April 2010.
*Triple play is gaining popularity; Cable Onda, the dominant cable TV operator, offers cable modem broadband and VoIP telephony over its coaxial and fibre optic cable.
*Movistar launched a UMTS network in December 2008. It is the only company offering 3G services, with coverage only over Panama City.
*Two new companies are bringing new competition to the Panamanian mobile market: Digicel, which began services in December 2008, and America Movil's Claro, expected to launch services in April 2009.
Table of contents
1. Executive Summary
2. Key Statistics
3. Country overview
4. Telecommunications Market
4.1 Overview of Panama's telecom market
5. Regulatory Environment
5.1 Regulatory authority
5.1.1 Autoridad Nacional de los Servicios Públicos (ASEP)
5.2 Privatisation of INTEL
5.3 Telecom sector liberalisation
5.4 Number portability
5.5 Free Trade Agreement
6. Fixed Network Operators in Panama
6.1 Cable & Wireless Panamá
6.2 ClaroCOM (Galaxy Communications Corp)
6.3 Telecarrier
6.4 Advanced Communication Network
6.5 Optynex Telecom
7. Telecommunications Infrastructure
7.1 National telecom network
7.1.1 Fixed-line statistics
7.2 International infrastructure
7.2.1 Interconnection with other Central American countries
7.2.2 Submarine cable networks
7.2.3 Satellite networks
7.3 Infrastructure developments
7.3.1 VoIP/IP telephony
7.3.2 Wireless Local Loop (WLL)
8. Internet Market
8.1 Overview
8.1.1 Internet statistics
9. Broadband Market
9.1 Overview
9.1.1 Broadband statistics
10. Convergence
10.1 Overview of media convergence
10.2 Triple play models
10.2.1 Cable Onda
10.3 Cable TV
10.4 Satellite TV
10.5 IPTV (Broadband TV)
11. Mobile Communications
11.1 Overview of Panama's mobile market
11.1.1 Mobile statistics
11.2 Spectrum auction-2008
11.3 Mobile technologies and data services
11.3.1 Third Generation (3G) mobile
11.4 Major mobile operators
11.4.1 +Movil (C&WP)
11.4.2 Movistar (Telefónica)
11.4.3 Digicel
11.4.4 Claro Panama (América Móvil)
12. Forecasts
12.1 Forecasts-fixed-line market to 2018
12.1.1 Scenario 1-higher fixed line growth
12.1.2 Scenario 2-lower fixed line growth
12.2 Forecasts-mobile market to 2018
12.2.1 Scenario 1-higher mobile market growth
12.2.2 Scenario 2-lower mobile market growth
12.3 Notes on scenario forecasts
13. Related reports
Table 1-Country statistics Panama-2008
Table 2-Telephone network statistics-2008
Table 3-Internet user statistics-2008
Table 4-Broadband statistics-2008
Table 5-Mobile statistics-2008
Table 6-National telecommunications authority
Table 7-Number of telecom concessions -March 2009
Table 8-Fixed lines in service and teledensity -1998 -2008
Table 9-Public telephones -1998 -2008
Table 10-Internet users and user penetration rate -1998 -2008
Table 11-Dial-up / broadband market share -2001 -2008
Table 12-Broadband subscribers and penetration rates-1998 -2008
Table 13-Broadband subscribers by technology -1998 -2008
Table 14-Mobile subscribers by operator and technology-2008
Table 15-Mobile subscribers and penetration rate -1998 -2008
Table 16-Operators' mobile market share -2003 -2008
Table 17-Mobile prepaid/postpaid ratio -1998 -2007
Table 18-Forecast fixed line subscribers-higher growth scenario-2008; 2013; 2018
Table 19-Forecast fixed line subscribers-lower growth scenario-2008; 2013; 2018
Table 20-Forecast mobile subscribers-higher growth scenario-2008; 2013; 2018
Table 21-Forecast mobile subscribers-lower growth scenario-2008; 2013; 2018
Exhibit 1-Major submarine cable networks serving Panama
Exhibit 2-BellSouth Panama / Telefónica Móviles Panamá-history
