Indotel president Gedeon de los Santos is serious about cutting the cost of Internet service in the Dominican Republic. On Monday, 21 September 2014, he signed up for the Dominican Republic to become the first Latin American country to join the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI). The goal for the DR is to drive Internet costs to the UN target of 5%, down from 25% at present.
A4AI estimates that Dominicans pay 25% of their monthly income for a 500 MB package compared to only 3.4% in El Selvador, and 5% in Jamaica.
Speaking at the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding, Santos said:
“Indotel is committed to universal telecommunications/ICT services, especially broadband services across the entire national territory and for all Dominicans, regardless of geographical location, economic status, gender, age and physical ability. Working with A4AI to reduce prices of broadband in our country is yet another step towards achieving our goal of reducing inequality in access to ICTs in the Dominican Republic.”
In turn, Sonia Jorge, executive director of the Alliance for Affordable Internet added: “Affordable access to the Internet changes lives. It allows entrepreneurs to start successful businesses, students to access world class educational materials for free, women to have access to information about their rights and governments to deliver better services to their citizens.
She said that while 46% of Dominicans has occasional access to the Internet, only 20% can afford the service, which prevents them from making the most of of new technology and information.
The MoU brings together public, private and civil society sectors to work as a coalition to identify key obstacles in regulatory policies that keep access prices high in the country. Next the stakeholders commit to collaborate to create ICT policies and regulations designed to slash the cost of Internet access.
The A4AI plan is to build a national coalition with all the stakeholders (telecoms, government, civil society organizations) that will identify the challenges and create a shared vision to define policy changes and regulatory changes. The coalition would then be part of the implementation attached to the best practices that show examples of what can be done in the national context.
The A4AI has the support of the Internet Society, DIRSI, Google, Omidyar Network, UK DFID, USAID, and the World Wide Foundation among other members in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors to achieve the objectives of lower Internet costs for consumers.
It is estimated that 50% of Dominicans have access to the Internet, compared to 74% in Puerto Rico and 64% in Trinidad & Tobago.