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Telecommunication Infrastructure
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By Gilles Sassine (MBA)
Teleco
Telecommunications D'Haiti (Teleco) is the monopoly government owned company in charge of all the telephone services. The state national bank (Banque de la Republique d'Haiti) holds 97% of Teleco. Not all the cities have telephone access, and line quality is hardly acceptable. The telephone density is close to 8 per 1000 persons, most of them concentrated in the capital city of Port-au-Prince. As of June 1991, the 15 digital plus 6 analog CXs allowed a total capacity of around 50,000 installed lines (only 15% out of the capital). The number of telephone employees per 1000 lines is 34 (far above the international standard of 7). For the Latin American and Caribbean region, the average number of principal telephone lines has climbed from 52 per 1,000 in 1985 to more than 90 in 1995. At present, there is a countrywide waiting list of more than 100,000 requests for the installation of telephone. The majority of these requests go back several years. Some customers have even already paid their basic installation fees without getting any service. The capacity available in the telephone centrals is near 200,000 lines and TELECO had planned to install these 200,000 lines throughout the country within 1999. A rural telephone program is also being implemented, aimed at installing nearly 600 stations in the various communities of the country. There is also a rural program to establish a specific network for the financial system (initiated by the Central Bank).
Haiti’s President appoints both the Chair and the Director of Teleco. The Minister of Works, Transport and Communications is Teleco's Vice Chair. A total of five Ministers sit on Teleco's Board of Directors, including the Ministers of Finance and Planning. Notwithstanding this leadership, there is a striking lack of accountability for Teleco's operations. According to representatives of the Central Bank, although its Governor sits on the board, Teleco "manages itself." The presence of Ministers from other important sectors on Teleco's board further complicates the accountability issue, and may in fact contribute to its evident divided loyalties, operational inertia, and unaccounted-for revenue shortfalls. Haiti has seen no increase in its 60,000 lines in the last few years, and reportedly only between 30-and-40,000 of those lines work at a given time. This is difficult to explain given its large work force (3200 employees), some $78 million in annual revenues, and just under $53 million in settlement payments from the United States. The Central Bank, the principal owner of Teleco, is therefore insulated from its operational problems. Teleco’s inefficiency, poor management, and lack of accountability, arbitrary or questionable business practices, do not affect the Bank’s daily operations. The Chairman of Teleco, as the Governor of the Central Bank, thus has little operational incentive to see to it that the problems with Teleco, service and otherwise, are solved.
In addition to wire line service, Teleco provides mobile cellular service through a joint venture with a company called Rectel. Sixty percent of this venture is owned by Teleco; forty percent by Rectel. Teleco also allocates frequency with the approval of the Regulator. This arrangement will no longer be sustainable as competition among cellular/PCS providers, Teleco, and ISPs develops. The complaints against Teleco are widespread. Its network is underdeveloped and poorly maintained. It appears to be poorly managed. Teleco resorts to arbitrary cuts in service to deter the use of voice-over-the Internet to avoid its high international tariffs. There is said to be corruption within the company. Service can go dead at any time, but customers must pay their bills anyway or lose service. Pirating of international lines occurs -- the line goes "dead," is used by the "pirates" to make international calls while the line is inoperative for the subscriber, who later receives a bill for an exorbitant amount for calls made during the service outage. Teleco maintains that it does not require customers to pay in this situation if they can establish that the calls occurred when they did not have service, but people in unrelated sectors -- academia and private business --dispute this.
Below are some Interesting facts pertaining to the telephone traffic to and from Haiti in relation to the change of numbers:
• Ratio of calls to Haiti Vs calls from Haiti is 10:1.This implies that most of the calls are in the southbound direction thus putting Teleco in a receivable position from a financial Standpoint. Poor planning of the change will mean loss of financial revenues for the main operator Teleco.
• Traffic is of a social nature (90%) Vs business nature (10%). Most calls destined to Haiti are usually family related . With more than 20% of telephone not working in Haiti, the individual living abroad will be deprived to establish a contact with his relatives in Haiti . QOS ( Quality of Service) is highly affected by poor planning of the present scenario.
• Average Conversation Time is 8-10 minutes. World average is 3-4min. By nature , Haitians talk more on the phone than the average person. This is sometime due to the fact verbal way of communicating can be the only mean to transfer messages. This will largely affect the Haitian community.
• Call Completion Rate (CCR)to Haiti is between 35-40% Vs 55% worldwide. By not planning the change properly , one can expect the CCR to further go down, probably in the range of 10-15% . This would also result in Network Congestion due to the fact that every call dialed with the incorrect format will generate a recording that could last some 10-29 sec. Large volume of recording would utilize circuits in a very inefficient fashion.
• International Signalization is still "In band type". Because of in band Signaling existing with most correspondents, circuit utilization will be poor. One can expect heavy load of congestion on the local network as well as the international network.
Wireless Service Providers
Comcel
Western Wireless International's operating company in Haiti, Communication Cellulaire d'Haiti ("COMCEL") was in September 1998 awarded a license to construct and operate a nationwide TDMA mobile communications network. Additionally, COMCEL was granted the right to build and operate services such as paging, payphones and -in the future - an international gateway. COMCEL launched commercial service in Port-au-Prince in September 1999, and with more than 13,000 prepaid subscribers as of June 30, 2000.
Haitel
Haiti Telecommunications International S.A. (Haitel) selected in 1999 Nortel Networks to build a digital wireless fixed and mobile telephone network in Haiti using advanced CDMA-One (IS-95 CDMA) technology. The contract, estimated to be worth US$86 million, represents the largest private investment ever made in the island nation. The Haitel network has a capacity of 60,000 subscribers in Port-au-Prince, and was expected to grow over the next five years to support up to 500,000 subscribers throughout the country. Installation of the network began the first quarter of 1999. Haitel's services include call waiting, caller ID, credit card calling and call forwarding. Several private investors, including U.S.-based MCI WorldCom, back the company. Nortel Networks has implemented a complete CDMA network including Nortel Networks DMS*-MTX* SuperNode digital mobile switching, base station controllers and CDMA Metro Cell and Minicell base stations. Nortel Networks also provides network design, engineering, installation, commissioning, operations and maintenance services.
Radio Stations
There are 63 AM/FM radio stations in Haiti. Radio Nationale, the state owned radio station used to be the only station capable of covering the whole island until Radio Vision 2000 stepped into the game. In the mid 1900s, a group of Haitian businessmen, with a fund from USAID, opened a new radio station that would not only cover the entire nation but offer its programs online as well. Radio Vision 2000 would become a fierce voice accusing the government of corrupt practices, implications in drug trafficking, and numerous other allegations. Government officials as well as police officers attacked the station with verbal and physical threats, and used a series of political and false allegations in order to shut down operations. The following two examples illustrates the kind of issues that the station had to face from its opening to present days. On September 18, 1997 the police chief for the province of Arcahaie, made threatening phone calls to journalists working for the radio station Vision 2000. He accused the station of not checking information and of passing on rumours. Vision 2000 had just reported that he had been accused of drug trafficking by the Haitian police. The director of the National Telecommunications Council (Conatel), Jean Arry Ceant, went to the offices of Vision 2000 with a group of armed police on 4 October of the same year to seize the station's satellite broadcasting equipment. In the end the seizure did not take place because a magistrate who was on the premises said the station have been given permission to use that type of equipment in a court ruling the previous year. In August 1998 Conatel had suspended Vision 2000's broadcasts to Haiti's main provincial cities for two weeks, claiming that the station had not paid all its taxes. The suspension was cancelled after Vision 2000 took the matter to court. Radio France International is the only international radio that has a branch in Haiti.
Cable
There is two-television station in Haiti, the state owned Television Nationale d'Haiti and the privately owned Tele-Haiti. The latter one offers Haitian Networks as well as American Networks such as CBS, NBC, HBO, and CNN. Not surprisingly, Haitians always try to bypass traditional mediums and implement their own systems. During the 80s, a few households invested in satellite dishes using C-band and Ku-band in order to gain access to more American channels. This medium gained popularity until the mid 90s when Global Satellite Services (GSS) was introduced in Haiti. Nowadays, with the influx of money from the Diaspora, the growing middle class, and the considerable increase in drug money, more people are getting connected to American Networks by using the small DSS dishes.
Liberalization and Deregulation
The Government of Haiti is committed to privatizing the management of a large number of state owned enterprises. Haiti's nine principal businesses: the flour mill, cement factory, telephone company (TELECO), electric company (EDH), port authority, airport authority, edible oil plant and two commercial banks are slated for privatization under the terms of the law on the modernization of public enterprises.
The government established the CMEP (Commission for the Modernization of Public Enterprises) in January 1997. The CMEP is made up five members to oversee the privatization program. In February 1997 the CMEP announced a time-bound action plan to guide the privatization process. The flour mill and cement plant were privatized in 1999.
Nevertheless an intensely polarized debate has taken place over the issue of privatization largely because of the ideological rhetoric used by the Aristide government to attack privatization and the Clinton Administration to advocate it. The result has been to deflect attention from the far more important question of how to privatize in the Haitian context. The popular fear of privatization results from Haiti's pattern of monopoly, luxury consumption and the transferring of private profits into foreign accounts rather than into reinvestment in Haiti.
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Infrastructures
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Liberalization Status
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Comments
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Public telecommunication network
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Monopoly
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Telecommunications D'Haiti (Teleco)
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Local networks for voice telephony
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Monopoly
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Telecommunications D'Haiti (Teleco)
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Leased Lines
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Fully liberalized market
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PANAMSAT, IMPSAT, Telecommunications D'Haiti (Teleco)
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Alternative Infrastructure:
· Railways
· Utilities
· Highways
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Mostly State owned except for highways.
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· Non-Existent
· Electricity (EDH Electricite d'Haiti), Water (CAMEP)
· Government and privately owned Vorbes & Fils
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Broadcasting and cable TV
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Fully liberalized market
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68 radio stations, 8 TV stations
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Voice Telephony
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Local communication
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Monopoly
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Telecommunications D'Haiti (Teleco)
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Domestic long-distance
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Monopoly
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Telecommunications D'Haiti (Teleco)
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International communication
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Partially liberalized market
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Telecommunications D'Haiti (Teleco), calling cards from MCI, ATT, and SPRINT
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Mobile Communication
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Analog
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?
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Telecommunications D'Haiti (Teleco)
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GSM digital
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N/A
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N/A
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CDMA
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Partially liberalized market
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Haitel
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TDMA
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Partially liberalized market
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Comcel
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Paging
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Open market
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Comcel, Haitel
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Satellite communications
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Partially liberalized market
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DSS, Radio Vision 2000, Tele-Haiti, Tele-Nationale
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Data Transmissions
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Fully liberalized market
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TCP/IP and POP services
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Value Added Services
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Partially liberalized market
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Up to 20 private companies
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Internet Service Provision
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Fully liberalized market
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7 ISP
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Equipment Provision
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Fully liberalized market
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Less than 30 private companies
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