Cable & Wireless Communications’ Lime subsidiary has launched HSPA+ services in the Cayman Islands. Lime had first announced plans for the HSPA+ launch in May as part of its strategy to upgrade its networks in the Caribbean.
Cable & Wireless has worked with HSPA+ in other markets, most recently launching services in Panama under the +Movil brand. In the Cayman Islands, Lime said it will provide 100% coverage of all three islands (Grand Cayman,Little Cayman and Cayman Brac).
Lime also plans to offer “4G” services across 12 additional Caribbean markets over the next 18 months, with Lime, Barbados and the Bahamas Telecommunications Company set to launch HSPA+ services later this year.
HSPA+ has been the natural upgrade for carriers prior to implementing 4G services. Erasmo Rojas, director for Latin America & Caribbean at 4G Americas, noted that there are already close to 60 million HSPA subscriptions in Latin America across 64 networks in 27 countries.
“Going forward and with the continuing demand for data usage, it is natural that carriers will focus now on the deployment of HSPA+ in their current spectrum assets and when new spectrum be available they will start deploying LTE as many of them have already trialed it,’ Rojas explained.” But at the end HSPA, HSPA+ and LTE coexist as each respond to different data needs.”
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