Description

Ringtones of Opportunity: Policy, Technology and Access in Caribbean Communications is one of the first books to present scholarly research on the liberating opportunities offered by information and communications technologies in the Caribbean and the global south. While acknowledging challenges of policy implementation and technology adaptation, the book nevertheless identifies a range of empowering development options in media literacy, e-fisheries, m-banking, mobile telephony, m-agriculture, tele-working, techno-driven environmental strategies and intellectual property reforms. More broadly, this volume explores the region s pre-liberalization challenges and the ups and downs of post-liberalization mobile competition in Caribbean telecommunications. While contemplating the ever present risks of a return to monopoly conditions in some mobile markets, the volume points to the real benefits achieved in customer satisfaction and business value-creation from the pervasive talk technologies. It points to the even greater potential that resides in deploying broadband wireless technologies and smart ICT applications for development within a regional framework of continuing investment promotion, digital transition, creative policymaking, and in the seeming paradox of flexible but firm industry regulation. Ringtones of Opportunity: Policy, Technology and Access in Caribbean Communications is a must read for those in search of new approaches to technology-assisted economic development. This book will be especially useful to regional and global thought leaders in ICTs, as well as to researchers, investors, service providers, government policymakers and students in a wide range of development disciplines.