Internet and e-commerce industry in Cayman Islands

The Cayman Islands represents a British overseas territory located in the western Caribbean Sea located south of Cuba and northwest of Jamaica, with just less than 50 000 residents. The Islands pretends to be one of the most wonderful places throughout the world. Cayman Islands’ GDP per capita is the 12th highest in the world, with an average income of around $42,000 Caymanians enjoy the highest standard of living in the Caribbean. Cayman Islands claims to be the fifth-largest banking centre in the world. The Cayman Islands is a major offshore financial centre in the Caribbean. One reason for the Cayman Islands’ success as an offshore financial centre has been the concentration of top-quality service providers.

Like the majority of Caribbean countries, Cayman Islands offers a full range of telecom services, including Internet connection despite having small ICT market in terms of population. Liberalization agreements have been reached in Cayman Islands, like in most Caribbean countries.

Three large Internet Service Providers offer full range of Internet connection solutions in Cayman Islands: Cable & Wireless, WestTel, Tele Cayman.

Cable & Wireless is a leading wholly owned telecommunications subsidiary of the British-based parent company Cable & Wireless plc. In 2008 the company was rebranded as LIME (Land, Internet, Mobile and Entertainment). This regional subsidiary covers fifteen former British colonies of the Caribbean region and is made up of several fairly autonomous Cable & Wireless telecommunications business units.

In 2005, Cable & Wireless implemented a VoIP broadband telephony service in the Cayman Islands, branded 'NetSpeak', based on Net2Phone’s managed and hosted IP platform. This service provides residential customers with high speed internet access to make unlimited international calls at a low monthly rate using their home internet connection instead of the traditional fixed line network. The NetSpeak service includes pricing plans for unlimited calling to the United States, Canada and Western Europe fixed lines.

Westtel markets itself as the best provider with the fastest broadband service in the Cayman Islands in monthly independent speed tests monitoring thousands of home and large business users. WestTel delivers its Internet services utilizing the latest in communications technology, providing various Internet and voice services via a robust network of fibre optic and fixed wireless infrastructures.

TeleCayman is an established telecommunication services company providing high speed internet, international networking, data, co-location and telephony solutions. The company is also delivering data on fiber optic and advanced wireless networks at speeds up to a 1,000 mbps, at cost effective prices.

In October 2007, the Caribbean's largest telecommunications provider, Digicel, started rolling out the next generation of personal broadband services in the Cayman Islands, utilizing standard based on mobile WiMAX 802.16e technology. The service is enabling users to connect the web anywhere they like, moving their modem to any location within Digicel's service area across the island, at no extra charge. So the company became the first ISP in the Cayman Islands to offer next-generation Mobile WiMAX based on 802.16e technology. Digicel Broadband packages range in speed from 512kbps up to 4 mbps.

In 2008, Alvarion Ltd., a leading provider of WiMAX and wireless broadband technologies, signed a master supply agreement with Digicel Group, to roll out a WiMAX network throughout the Caribbean region, in a major initiative to be deployed over the next few years. This agreement followed the successful commercial deployment of its 802.16e system in Grand Cayman in 2007. As part of the master supply agreement, Alvarion, along with its OPEN WiMAX partners, delivers an end-to-end WiMAX offering based on Alvarion’s Mobile WiMAX system.

Islands’ Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is .ky. Two years registration agreement is rather expensive - $399. Registration is limited to residents and registered companies in the Cayman Islands, and a local address and phone number is required for the registrant and administrative contact. Foreign companies cannot use local admin-C for registrations.
As in majority of other developed countries, registrations in Cayman Islands may be accomplished directly under the second level, or at the third level beneath these names:

• com.ky
• org.ky
• net.ky
• edu.ky (restricted to educational institutions)
• gov.ky (restricted to governmental entities)

  Concerning the Internet penetration level, it currently makes up about 47% of the population with 23,000 connected. That may be compared to the previous years’ data: by 2002 just 23% of Caymanians were linked to the Web.

Obviously, Internet development and deployment in Cayman Islands has had a profound effect on the conduct of offshore and e-commerce business in the country. However, as for all other aspects of business activity, the substantial changes are expected, to make country an offshore and e-commerce leader.

In June, 2002, the Cayman Islands Bankers' Association (CIBA) presented a report on e-commerce development to the government's E-Business Advisory Board, according to www.lowtax.net. After a long-drawn out birth process, the Cayman Islands Information and Communications Technology Authority (ICTA) finally came into existence. ICTA is currently responsible for regulating all ICT networks and services, including telephony, broadcasting, radio and e-business, and was established in compliance with the Information and Communications Technology Law 2002.

The ICT Law and the authority establishment became a significant step forward for the development of e-business and ICT infrastructure in the Cayman Islands.

In 2006, Savvis, a global provider of IT infrastructure solutions for businesses and government agencies, entered into a comprehensive distribution agreement effectively giving TeleBermuda and TeleCayman exclusive rights to offer select Savvis services in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. Under the terms of this contract, TeleBermuda and TeleCayman, leverages Savvis's industry-leading global private financial network to develop and market products and services to clients, primarily in banking and finance, insurance and reinsurance, and hedge fund industries.

The agreement also allows thousands of customers to connect to Savvis’s Financial Extranet to access Bermuda and the Cayman Islands’ lucrative financial markets to submit a variety of trade-related messages, including indications of interest, order routing, and trade executions, and carry out other Financial Information eXchange (FIX) and non-FIX transactions.

Rapid deployment of Internet related services in the Cayman Islands led to development of e-commerce sector. Since 2005 the Cayman Islands has considered to be the Caribbean state with the best ICT infrastructure, followed by the creation of the ICT Law and the authority, that impacted the successful development of electronic and offshore business. These further let Cayman Islands to become one of the world e-commerce and offshore leaders, with the strongest banking sector. Cayman Islands, moreover, claims to be the tax haven for international offshore businesses, remaining an earthy haven.