Honduras News – Daily News about Honduras

Digicel’s Honduran unit plans to launch a legal bid to recover monies it claims it is owed by national PTO Hondutel concerning the latter’s failure to adhere to the terms of their Interconnection Agreement.

Digicel says it is looking to sue for HNL10 million (USD538,000) in payments covering the term from February 2009, unless the debt is honored.

Last month Digicel said that if it failed to get an agreement concerning payment of the debt, it would be forced to suspend incoming international calls. However, December 16th the National Telecommunications Commission (Conatel) ordered it to permit the entry of international calls from Hondutel, and instead take the matter to arbitration.

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Communications in Honduras are better than one would expect based on the country’s other economic indicators. Mobile penetration is about average for Central America and quite high compared with GDP per capita.

Fixed-line telephony has been partly liberalized, with long-distance telephony open to competition, but local services are still a monopoly of state-owned Hondutel and its franchise partners. Laws governing full liberalization have been delayed amid allegations of corruption and political wrangling over the role of Hondutel.

The mobile sector, on the other hand, is highly competitive, with four operators offering services. The market leader is Millicom’s Tigo, followed by America Movil’s Claro.  Digicel entered the market in November 2008.

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Jamaica-based Caribbean mobile network operator Digicel, which currently provides mobile services in 23 countries and territories in the region and in Central America, has won a licence to offer WiMAX services in eight departments in Honduras.

Digicel secured the concession with a bid of HNL36 million (USD1.86 million), beating off rival offers from Celtel, Sercom, Lumelsa, Autoconsa and Axioma Empresarial.

Digicel already holds wireless broadband WiMAX licenses in Jamaica and Gran Cayman. In December last year it won a GSM licence in Honduras with a bid of USD80 million and hopes to launch commercial operations there before Christmas.

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Ericsson has been awarded a GSM/EDGE contract by Digicel Group in Honduras, making Ericsson the preferred supplier for Digicel’s operations in the Caribbean, El Salvador and now in Honduras.

Under the agreement Ericsson will be the sole supplier of a GSM/EDGE network including core network, radio access and microwave transmission. It will provide subscribers with access to a reliable and robust network as well as services such as GPRS/EDGE mobile internet access, per-second billing and international roaming. The deal also includes Ericsson’s Mobile Softswitch Solution, which is capable of carrying large volumes of voice traffic in a state-of-the-art network architecture.

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