The concept of meaningful connectivity – defined by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) as connectivity that allows all users to enjoy a productive online experience at an affordable cost, benchmarked at a minimum download speed of 20 Mbps to 100 per cent of the population by 2030 – has become a foundational policy objective in international telecommunications governance.1 Yet in Caribbean small island developing states (SIDS), the distance between this aspiration and operational reality remains substantial and, in several critical dimensions, is widening.
While high-speed internet coverage in the Caribbean expanded from 30 per cent in 2012 to over 75 per cent in 2024, driven substantially by the World Bank’s Caribbean Regional Communications Infrastructure Program (CARCIP), 15 million citizens still lack mobile broadband access and four million households have no fibre connection, even as regional data demand is projected to grow five-fold by 2030.2 3
Four major global content platforms collectively generated more than USD 11.5 billion in revenue from Caribbean users in 2024, yet their direct contribution to regional network investment remains limited, an imbalance that the Caribbean Association of National Telecommunication Organizations (CANTO) has characterised as an urgent matter of shared infrastructure responsibility.4
These connectivity deficits do not exist in isolation. They are compounded by a structural energy challenge: over 90 per cent of power generation in the Eastern Caribbean still derives from imported fossil fuels.5 As data centres become increasingly central to digital service delivery, a Caribbean connectivity strategy that fails to address energy sustainability risks deepening, rather than reducing, regional economic and climate vulnerability. Simultaneously, the region faces an escalating cybersecurity threat environment – the fastest-growing globally by disclosed incident rate, with a 25 per cent annual growth in cyber incidents over the past decade.6 7
This paper argues that meaningful connectivity in Caribbean SIDS cannot be adequately addressed through separate sectoral policy frameworks. Spectrum policy, sustainable infrastructure development and cybersecurity resilience are interdependent dimensions of a single governance challenge. Drawing on empirical data from regional and international sources and examining Jamaica’s 600 MHz spectrum award process, the regional low earth orbit (LEO) satellite landscape and the satellite emergency communications response to Hurricane Melissa in October 2025 as case studies, it develops an integrated policy framework for Caribbean digital regulators.
Meaningful connectivity as a policy benchmark
Meaningful connectivity extends the policy framing beyond access to the internet towards quality, affordability and the digital capabilities required for productive online participation.8 The ITU’s Digital Infrastructure Investment Initiative, co-led with seven multilateral development finance institutions including the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), quantifies the investment required to achieve this standard at USD 1.6 trillion globally by 2030, covering wireless and fixed infrastructure, backbone networks, data centres, undersea cables and internet exchange points.9
The ITU Secretary-General has articulated the multidimensional character of connectivity as encompassing economic empowerment, societal resilience and the preservation of life – a framing that positions universal broadband access as an issue of fundamental rights rather than market development alone.10 This framing aligns with the broader argument, advanced by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, that digital transformation can accelerate progress towards 70 per cent of targets under the UN Sustainable Development Goals, provided connectivity is genuinely inclusive.11
The COVID-19 pandemic provided the most acute demonstration of the stakes. When the pandemic struck, four uses of telecommunications became immediately dependent on connectivity: the ability to work, learn, access healthcare and interact with government services.12 In territories and communities without reliable broadband access, all four collapsed simultaneously. The Inter-American Telecommunication Commission, CITEL, responded by recommending that member states accelerate temporary spectrum licensing and prioritise connectivity as an essential service.13 The Caribbean Community, CARICOM, committed to post-pandemic digital resilience, explicitly targeting the gender gap in ICT access.14 The ITU launched two platforms – REG4COVID for regulatory best practices sharing and CYB4COVID for cybersecurity response resources – that remain institutionally relevant to Caribbean emergency planning.15
The enduring analytical contribution of the COVID experience is its demonstration that telecommunications resilience is not separable from the broader infrastructure ecosystem. Network quality depends on energy supply, spectrum availability and cybersecurity posture simultaneously. A ‘meaningful connectivity’ framework that addresses access without attending to these underlying conditions will systematically fail in times of stress – precisely when its social value is greatest.
Caribbean digital infrastructure: status and gaps
The Caribbean’s digital infrastructure trajectory reflects a pattern common to middle-income developing regions: measurable headline gains accompanied by persistent structural inequalities in depth of coverage, affordability and infrastructure quality. High-speed internet coverage expanded from 30 per cent in 2012 to over 75 per cent in 2024, with Saint Lucia exemplifying the trajectory – connectivity exceeding 78 per cent and data costs falling from USD 3.50 to USD 2.23 per month, contributing to an estimated 65 per cent employment rate among certified IT/ITES graduates in the CARCIP-supported programme.16 Over 11,000 IT certifications were issued and nearly 5,000 ICT jobs created across the region through the same programme.
However, these gains mask substantial deficits. CANTO’s chairman reported in July 2025 that 15 million Caribbean citizens still lack mobile broadband access and four million households have no fibre connectivity, even as regional data demand is forecast to grow fivefold by 2030.17 The geographic and socio-economic distribution of connectivity gaps means that the communities most dependent on public services – rural populations, low-income households and persons with disabilities – are disproportionately excluded from digital participation.
The revenue imbalance between the amount generated by global content platforms and regional infrastructure investment represents a structural dimension of this challenge. CANTO has identified that major global platforms generated USD 11.5 billion in revenue from Caribbean users in 2024 while contributing limited direct investment to the regional network infrastructure on which this revenue depends.18 This imbalance is not unique to the Caribbean – it is the central issue in the global ‘fair share’ debate – but its consequences in a small, capital-constrained region are disproportionately severe. Korea’s regulatory model, which mandates that OTT providers with more than one million daily users and more than one per cent of total data network traffic contribute to network stability and cost, represents one regulatory precedent of relevance to Caribbean jurisdictions.19
The Caribbean’s fixed broadband landscape similarly reflects global trends at a lag. The global share of fibre to the premises in fixed broadband subscriptions reached 68.3 per cent by the third quarter of 2023, with global fixed broadband connections totalling 1.42 billion.20 Caribbean fibre deployment has accelerated but remains significantly below these benchmarks, particularly in lower-income territories.
| Indicator | Caribbean (2024) | Global Benchmark | Source |
| High-speed internet coverage | 75%+ | — | World Bank, 2025 |
| Mobile broadband without access | 15M citizens | — | CANTO, 2025 |
| Households without fibre | 4M+ | — | CANTO, 2025 |
| 5G population coverage (global) | ~40% | 89% (high-income) | ITU, 2023 |
| FTTP share of fixed broadband | Growing | 68.3% globally | Point Topic, 2023 |
| Cyberattacks per week | 2,582 (orgs) | +40% above global avg | Symptai, 2025 |
Table 1: Caribbean Digital Infrastructure Indicators
Spectrum management as a connectivity tool: the Jamaica 600 MHz award
Spectrum is the foundational resource on which wireless broadband connectivity rests and the 600 MHz band, previously allocated to broadcasting, represents one of the most valuable assets available for extending meaningful connectivity to hard-to-reach populations. Its propagation characteristics enable coverage of rural areas and penetration into structures at a lower infrastructure cost than mid-band or high-band 5G deployments.
In July 2024, Jamaica’s Spectrum Management Authority (SMA) published rules for the country’s first-ever spectrum award in the 600 MHz band – a single contiguous block of 2×20 MHz in the 617-652 MHz and 663-698 MHz ranges. Jamaica had formally identified the 614-698 MHz band for International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) at the World Radiocommunication Conference 2023 (WRC-23), held in Dubai in December 2023.21
This identification aligned Jamaica with the broader regional trend: in the Americas, only Canada and the United States had previously assigned 600 MHz spectrum for mobile services, with Mexico planning assignment in 2025 and Colombia not until 2029.
Rather than maximising spectrum revenue, the beauty contest format prioritised the quality of the winning operator’s deployment plan, financial capacity and commitment to timely network rollout
The award was structured as a beauty contest rather than an auction, a design choice with significant policy implications. Rather than maximising spectrum revenue, the beauty contest format prioritised the quality of the winning operator’s deployment plan, financial capacity and commitment to timely network rollout. This approach reflects a deliberate regulatory judgment that connectivity outcomes, particularly in underserved areas, are best secured through operator commitment rather than price competition.
The licence conditions embed meaningful connectivity standards directly into the spectrum assignment. The winner must cover at least 50 per cent of the national population, including specifically designated unserved and underserved communities, within 12 months of licence assignment, rising to 95 per cent within 24 months, with a minimum download speed of 5 Mbps and a signal strength of -105 dBm or better across all obligated areas.
The licence term is 15 years and renewable, with a reserve price of USD 24 million (USD 8 million payable at assignment and USD 16 million in annual instalments over 10 years). A spectrum cap of 33 per cent of total available mobile spectrum per operator provides structural protection against undue market concentration.
This award demonstrates a mature regulatory approach that treats spectrum as a public resource with social obligations attached, not merely as a revenue instrument. The direct translation of coverage and speed requirements into licence conditions – rather than voluntary commitments – provides the regulatory community with an enforceable standard and a precedent applicable to future award processes across other Caribbean jurisdictions.
Low earth orbit satellites in the Caribbean: licensing, deployment and regulatory challenges
LEO satellite services represent a structurally distinct approach to connectivity in the Caribbean, offering coverage independent of terrestrial infrastructure and capable of reaching populations that fixed and mobile networks cannot serve economically.
SpaceX’s Starlink constellation, with over 4,786 satellites in orbit and approximately 2,000 further planned as of 2023, is the world’s first and largest commercial LEO broadband service.22 As of mid-2023, Starlink was commercially available in 14 Caribbean and Central American territories, including Jamaica (licensed in October 2022), with commercial launches planned for at least 15 additional territories including Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada and St Lucia.
Jamaica’s Starlink licence is issued as an individual licence under the Radio and Telegraph Control Act of 1973, with an annual renewable term and annual regulatory and spectrum fees. The policy objective associated with the licence is coverage of rural and unserved areas, establishing satellite broadband as a complementary layer in Jamaica’s universal service architecture rather than a substitute for terrestrial networks.23 The competitive LEO landscape is also expanding: Amazon’s Kuiper and Telesat’s Lightspeed have announced plans to launch services in the Americas, while OneWeb and Swarm are already licensed in Brazil.
The regulatory debate around LEO satellites in 2024 focused on three interconnected issues: spectrum coordination for satellite services at WRC-27; market access and licensing frameworks, with several jurisdictions – Thailand, Nigeria and South Africa – revising or scrutinising their regulatory approaches; and space sustainability, including orbital debris mitigation and the US Federal Communications Commission’s five-year deorbit requirement for LEO satellites.24 The ITU Radiocommunication Assembly (RA-23) adopted a recommendation on the framework and objectives for 6G, with WRC-27 preparing studies on spectrum allocations for direct satellite-to-IMT device connectivity – a development with direct implications for Caribbean emergency communications, as the Hurricane Melissa case demonstrates.
Perhaps the most consequential development in the satellite landscape is the emergence of direct-to-device (D2D) technology. Starlink’s D2D capability enables standard LTE mobile handsets to communicate via satellite without additional hardware, using onboard satellite modems that function as space-based cellular towers capable of interoperating with existing mobile networks as standard roaming partners.25 T-Mobile in the United States, Salt in Switzerland and One in New Zealand have established D2D partnerships with Starlink. Juniper Research projected over 300,000 connections accessing satellite 5G networks by the end of 2024.26 The regulatory implications of D2D, encompassing spectrum allocation, MNO interconnection arrangements and national PLMN (public land mobile network) code management, are examined in the following section through the Hurricane Melissa case study.
Hurricane Melissa: a case study in emergency satellite spectrum governance
Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica on 28 October 2025 as a category 5 storm, the strongest hurricane of 2025 and the third-most intense Atlantic hurricane on record. The storm caused extensive damage to terrestrial telecommunications infrastructure across significant portions of the island, eliminating mobile and fixed network coverage in the most severely affected communities.
The satellite communications response that followed constitutes the most significant documented real-world test of LEO and geostationary satellite emergency services in the Caribbean to date and its analysis yields regulatory lessons of direct relevance to spectrum policy, emergency preparedness and the WRC-27 agenda.
The Starlink donated terminal programme
SpaceX mobilised its crisis response team proactively from 23 October 2025, engaging disaster management officials across the Caribbean as tropical storm Melissa developed. Following category 5 landfall, SpaceX chartered an Antonov An-12 cargo aircraft to expedite delivery of 400 terminals, bypassing normal shipping constraints. Over 900 Starlink user terminals were ultimately deployed to Jamaica. Within the first 35 days, approximately 250,000 people were connected through donated terminals, with the hardware permanently retained by recipient agencies. SpaceX provided 30 days of free service for all residential customers affected by the disaster. The crisis response team remained on the ground in Jamaica for nearly two weeks.27
Direct-to-device activation: a historic deployment milestone
The activation of Starlink’s D2D service in Jamaica within less than 24 hours of Melissa’s landfall represents a significant milestone in emergency telecommunications. D2D enables any standard LTE mobile handset to communicate via satellite without additional hardware or configuration, making the service immediately accessible to the general population even where all cellular infrastructure was destroyed. SpaceX described this as a ‘historic deployment milestone’ achieved through close coordination with Jamaica’s Spectrum Management Authority.28
The SMA issued a temporary spectrum licence enabling D2D transmission over affected areas. The quantified impact was substantial: over 1.8 million SMS messages were carried via D2D through January 2026; 140,000 unique users registered on 1 November 2025 alone and 32 organisations were supported, comprising 14 humanitarian and 18 government entities.29
The HispaSat/Indra Group deployment
HispaSat, part of the Indra Group, deployed geostationary satellite antennas at multiple locations across Jamaica, from Westmoreland and St Elizabeth in the west to Portland and St Thomas in the east, through a turnkey emergency response platform. On-ground deployment was led by the Jamaica Defence Force, Jamaica Constabulary Force , and UNICEF, following in-country training facilitated by HispaSat technicians prior to the event. Neptune Communications Jamaica, which provides independent satellite services specifically designed for Caribbean government and critical agency emergency connectivity, also activated its services during the response period.30
Four operational gaps and their regulatory remedies
Despite its broadly successful outcomes, the Hurricane Melissa response revealed four operational gaps that have been formally documented in Jamaica’s national resilience framework:31
First, the absence of pre-identified beneficiary institutions caused delays in utilising specialised deployment teams, some of which required temporary withdrawal due to security issues and lack of electrical power. The solution is a pre-identified, geo-referenced registry of priority sites – hospitals, shelters, schools and emergency operations centres – maintained by the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management and shared with satellite providers in advance.
The activation of Starlink’s D2D service in Jamaica within less than 24 hours of Melissa’s landfall represents a significant milestone in emergency telecommunications
Second, the Government of Jamaica was responsible for providing routers and access points for the HispaSat deployment, but procurement delays affected equipment availability. Satellite service agreements should incorporate routers and edge devices as an integrated solution, with strategic buffer stock maintained locally.
Third, domestic telecommunications companies were entirely occupied recovering their own infrastructure, leaving insufficient trained local partners available for satellite deployment support. A minimum of two qualified local partners per technology platform should be identified and trained before any emergency.
Fourth, administrative and customs clearance processes were not aligned with emergency reaction timescales. A standing emergency spectrum authorisation framework, enabling immediate service activation from day zero under the Telecommunications Act, is required.
Technical prerequisites for D2D pre-deployment
Starlink has articulated three technical conditions that, if established in advance by regulators and operators, would enable D2D activation materially faster than the sub-24-hour milestone achieved during Melissa:31
- Spectrum pre-allocation: dedication of terrestrial spectrum available to all operators for emergency use, with D2D requiring 10 MHz uplink × 10 MHz downlink of cleared frequency division duplex spectrum in the 1.4–2.7 GHz band;
- MNO interconnection: pre-established interconnection agreements with all local mobile network operators eliminating procedural delays during activation; and
- PLMN code designation: a dedicated Public Land Mobile Network code for emergency service use, either from a partner operator or issued by the regulatory authority — without which standard LTE handsets cannot register to the emergency satellite network.
The SMA’s formalised action item – to develop a standing emergency spectrum authorisation framework covering D2D and VSAT services, formalise pre-interconnection arrangements between Starlink and Jamaican MNOs, including PLMN code designation and pre-identify geo-referenced priority deployment sites – directly addresses these requirements, with a stated target of activation below the 24-hour threshold achieved during Melissa.33 This action item represents a concrete regulatory contribution to the WRC-27 agenda item studying spectrum allocations for direct satellite-to-IMT device connectivity.
Sustainable digital infrastructure: the renewable energy imperative for Caribbean data centres
Data centres are the physical substrate of the digital economy. Every cloud service, government portal, streaming platform and enterprise application runs on data centre infrastructure – and that infrastructure is energy intensive to an increasing degree. In 2024, data centres accounted for approximately 1.5 per cent of global electricity consumption; the International Energy Agency projects this share to double by 2030, in part driven by the energy demands of artificial intelligence workloads.34 For context, this projected growth is equivalent to adding Japan’s entire national electricity consumption to the global grid.35
Globally, renewables – primarily wind, solar photovoltaic and hydro – supply approximately 27 per cent of the electricity consumed by data centres, with renewables projected by the IEA to meet nearly half of incremental data centre electricity demand between 2024 and 2030. Major technology companies have made binding commitments: AWS, Google and Microsoft have signed the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact, requiring 75 per cent renewable electricity matching by 2025 and 100 per cent by 2030. Amazon, Google and Microsoft collectively account for 98.7 per cent of tracked large-scale corporate power purchase agreements for US non-utility businesses, with a combined portfolio of 84 gigawatts under contract as of early 2025.36
The Caribbean context presents a stark structural challenge to this global trajectory. Over 90 per cent of power generation in the Eastern Caribbean still derives from imported fossil fuels. As of 2022, only approximately 12 per cent of regional electricity came from renewables – well below the share already embedded in the most fossil-fuel-dependent global data centre markets.37 The gap between current grid capacity and the level required to reliably power data centres is identified by analysts as wide, with progress described as slow.38
Investment is accelerating but from a low base. The World Bank approved a USD 110 million Caribbean resilient renewable energy infrastructure investment facility in April 2025 for Grenada, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, with a total investment pipeline of nearly USD 500 million in Caribbean renewable energy.39 These are significant commitments but they must be accompanied by policy frameworks that link data centre development to grid sustainability.
The co-location model – pairing data centres directly with on-site renewable energy generation – is increasingly standard practice among hyperscale operators globally, reducing grid reliance, fossil-fuel exposure and long-term operational cost.40 For Caribbean regulators, the policy implication is clear: data centre licensing frameworks should require operators to disclose energy sources, incentivise or mandate renewable energy matching and create pathways for co-located generation. Failing to embed these requirements now risks locking Caribbean digital infrastructure into fossil fuel dependency at precisely the moment when global digital investment is shifting towards sustainable operations as a compliance requirement.
Cybersecurity as a precondition for meaningful connectivity
Meaningful connectivity is not merely a function of network access and speed – it requires the presence of sufficient trust for users to engage with digital services. Cybersecurity is therefore a precondition, not an adjunct, of meaningful connectivity. A population connected to a network they do not trust, or whose government services, financial institutions and communications infrastructure are subject to persistent, successful attack, is not meaningfully connected in any functional sense.
The Caribbean’s cybersecurity threat environment is severe by any comparative measure. (See Table 1).41 The Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region is the world’s fastest growing by disclosed cyber incident rate, with a 25 per cent average annual growth rate over the past decade. It is also the least protected, with an average cybersecurity maturity score of 10.2 out of 20.42 The projected annual cost of cyber attacks in the LAC region exceeds USD 90 million by 2025, with more than 18.5 million attacks per year.43 Jamaica alone logged approximately 4 million attempted cyber attacks in the first half of 2024.44
Government institutions (21 per cent of targets) and financial organisations (13 per cent), as entities storing valuable data and running critical processes, bear the heaviest incidence of attacks in the LAC region.45 The energy sector, increasingly digitised and connected, has become a significant ransomware target; any data centre connected to Caribbean grid infrastructure constitutes a potential attack surface if not adequately secured. COVID-19 reinforced this threat dynamic: ICANN joined the COVID-19 Cyber Threat Coalition specifically because a surge in pandemic-related phishing, malware and domain name abuse was targeting newly online users within weeks of lockdowns beginning.46
The IDB-OAS 2025 Cybersecurity Report – the most comprehensive assessment of cybersecurity maturity in the region to date, encompassing 30 countries including 15 Caribbean and CARICOM members – documents a ‘positive trajectory’ but identifies a structural pattern of concern: gains are concentrated in legal and strategic frameworks (national cybersecurity strategies, data protection laws, computer crime legislation), while operational capabilities, incident response and cross-sector coordination significantly lag.47
The 2025 Caribbean maturity scores show the lowest performance in ‘culture and awareness’ (approximately 2.1 out of 5) and ‘capacity building’ (approximately 2.0 out of 5), with the highest score in ‘legal frameworks’ (approximately 3.1 out of 5) – a profile consistent with governments that have legislated but not yet operationalised their cybersecurity ambitions.
The CARICOM Cyber Security and Cybercrime Action Plan (CCSCAP) 2025, launched in Port of Spain in October 2024 with EU support under the Global Gateway initiative, provides the strategic framework to close these gaps. The 2025 IDB-OAS report concludes that cybersecurity must be treated as a collective responsibility, with countries integrating it into broader development agendas and building genuine public-private partnerships better positioned to respond to threats.48 Global cybersecurity governance trends reinforce this direction: the EU’s NIS2 Directive extends mandatory security obligations across critical infrastructure sectors; Singapore has proposed extending cybersecurity agency oversight to cloud service providers and data centre operators; and the UK has proposed mandatory baseline security and resilience requirements for third-party data centres.49 These constitute the international benchmarks against which Caribbean frameworks will increasingly be measured by investors and international partners.
Global infrastructure trends and Caribbean policy implications
Four global infrastructure trends identified by Cullen International’s 2024 global trends analysis warrant specific attention from Caribbean telecommunications regulators.50
The 5G digital divide
Global 5G subscriptions reached 1.6 billion at the end of 2023 – a 60 per cent increase from 2022 – and are forecast to reach 5.3 billion by 2029, representing 300 per cent growth.51 However, 5G network coverage, which reached an average of 40 per cent of the world population by November 2023, is profoundly unequal: 89 per cent of people in high-income countries are covered while the service is nearly absent in low-income countries.52 The ITU explicitly observed that the digital divide is deepening with each new generation of wireless technology. 3GPP’s Release 18 – 5G-Advanced – will embed AI enhancements across all layers of 5G networks for improved performance, energy efficiency and IoT capability.53 Caribbean spectrum planning for 5G mid- and high-band assignments must anticipate this trajectory.
Tower infrastructure consolidation
Phoenix Tower International announced an expansion of its Caribbean portfolio through the acquisition of 1,300 tower sites from Liberty Latin America across the Bahamas, Barbados, the British Virgin Islands, Jamaica, Panama and Puerto Rico, targeted for completion in the first half of 2024.54 This transaction illustrates that regional tower infrastructure decisions are increasingly being made at the global mergers and acquisitions level. Caribbean regulators must ensure that infrastructure sharing policy, tower access regulations and public interest conditions for major tower consolidations are in place and enforceable. Tower M&A activity that concentrates passive infrastructure in a single entity with limited regulatory oversight creates the risk of market foreclosure for smaller operators and entrants.
The fair share debate
The ‘fair share’ debate – concerning whether OTT platforms generating high traffic volumes should contribute to network deployment and upgrade costs – continued in 2024 with active consultations in Brazil, the European Union and the United States.55 In Korea, OTT providers above defined traffic and user thresholds are already legally required to contribute to network stability and costs. The Caribbean dimension of this debate is acute: the USD 11.5 billion in platform revenue generated from Caribbean users in 2024 substantially exceeds the investment those platforms make in regional network infrastructure. The international regulatory trend – toward broader accountability for platform contributions to network costs – provides Caribbean regulators with a growing international precedent to develop their own regulatory positions on this issue.
AI in telecommunications and data centre operations
Nokia reports that 78 per cent of telecommunications companies globally are counting on AI-based solutions to reduce network energy use.56 Ericsson highlights AI and automation in network planning and maintenance as key efficiency levers for 5G operators – a development reinforced by 3GPP Release 18’s AI-native network architecture.57 In the data centre sector, prefabricated modular construction and large-scale retrofits are emerging as the preferred approaches to managing the tension between rapid deployment and sustainable operations.58 AT&T has identified a renewed industry focus on zero-trust cybersecurity architecture as the dominant paradigm for protecting critical communications infrastructure.59 These trends collectively suggest that Caribbean regulators should develop technical capacity in AI governance, data centre operational standards and network security architecture, rather than treating these as purely private sector concerns.
Towards an integrated regulatory framework
The empirical evidence surveyed in this paper supports a core analytical claim: meaningful connectivity in Caribbean SIDS cannot be achieved through spectrum policy, sustainable infrastructure development and cybersecurity governance operating in isolation. These three domains are structurally interdependent, and their interdependencies generate specific policy consequences that siloed regulatory frameworks systematically fail to address.
The interdependence is most clearly illustrated by the Hurricane Melissa case. The success of the D2D emergency activation depended simultaneously on the SMA’s spectrum governance capacity (the temporary licence was issued within hours), the pre-existing commercial relationship with a licensed satellite operator (Starlink’s October 2022 Jamaica licence) and the cybersecurity posture of the satellite network and the organisations receiving service. Had any one of these dimensions been absent or inadequate, the outcome for 140,000 Jamaicans in the first 24 hours would have been materially worse.
Future emergency activations will require, in addition, pre-established MNO interconnection arrangements and PLMN code designation – both regulatory preconditions, not commercial ones.
Similarly, the renewable energy imperative for Caribbean data centres cannot be addressed purely as an energy policy question. Whether data centres powered by renewable energy are accessible for regulation in Caribbean jurisdictions depends on whether those data centres are established – which depends on whether spectrum and digital infrastructure policy creates a compelling enabling environment. An energy policy that mandates renewable sourcing for data centre operations has no effect if data centres choose not to establish in the jurisdiction.
The cybersecurity domain demonstrates the same pattern. The CCSCAP 2025 and the legal frameworks documented by the IDB-OAS assessment create obligations but not capabilities. Operational cybersecurity resilience requires network monitoring infrastructure, trained incident response personnel, threat intelligence sharing mechanisms and cross-sector coordination – all of which involve spectrum management, telecommunications licensing, and infrastructure policy. A cybersecurity strategy that does not engage spectrum and infrastructure regulators will produce incomplete outcomes.
The paper therefore proposes four integrated policy priorities for Caribbean telecommunications regulators:
First, the development of standing emergency spectrum authorisation frameworks that embed pre-approvals for direct-to-device and VSAT emergency services, mandatory MNO interconnection pre-agreements and PLMN code designations in the standard regulatory toolkit – not as post-disaster responses but as pre-positioned instruments. The SMA’s Action Item 8 from the Hurricane Melissa lessons provides a detailed operational blueprint applicable across the Caribbean region.
Second, data centre licensing frameworks that require disclosure of energy sources and established benchmarks for renewable energy use to be aligned with the global trajectory (50 per cent by 2025, 100 per cent by 2030 under the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact) and that create enabling conditions for co-located renewable generation, including grid access rights, permitting streamlining and green power purchase agreement frameworks.
Third, engagement with the global ‘fair share’ debate at the regulatory level, developing national positions on OTT platform contributions to network investment based on the emerging international precedents, including the Korean model of traffic-based contribution obligations, and incorporating these positions into the CITEL and CARICOM regional digital policy processes.
Fourth, operational cybersecurity investment that moves beyond legal and strategic frameworks to build active incident response capabilities, sector-specific threat intelligence sharing mechanisms and cross-border coordination infrastructure using the CCSCAP 2025 as the organising framework and ensuring that telecommunications regulators are institutionally embedded in national cybersecurity governance, not positioned as secondary participants.
Conclusions
This paper has examined meaningful connectivity in Caribbean SIDS through a lens encompassing spectrum policy, sustainable digital infrastructure and cybersecurity resilience. The analysis has demonstrated that these three domains are structurally interdependent dimensions of a single governance challenge – and that the Caribbean’s capacity to close its connectivity gaps depends on how effectively regional regulators develop frameworks that address this interdependence.
The evidence is unambiguous on the scale of the challenge. Fifteen million Caribbean citizens lack mobile broadband. Over 90 per cent of Eastern Caribbean electricity derives from fossil fuels. Caribbean organisations face 40 per cent more cyber attacks than the global average with cybersecurity maturity significantly below international norms. Global data demand will grow five-fold in the region by 2030. The ITU estimates USD 1.6 trillion in investment is needed globally to close connectivity gaps by 2030 – of which the Caribbean’s share, though proportionally small, requires deliberate policy action to attract.
Three original contributions emerge from this analysis. First, the Hurricane Melissa case – the first documented direct-to-device emergency activation in the Caribbean – demonstrates that satellite emergency communications can function at scale in Caribbean conditions, but require specific regulatory preconditions (spectrum pre-allocation, MNO interconnection, PLMN designation) that must be established before, not during, an emergency. The regulatory action items derived from this case study have direct applicability to the WRC-27 agenda and to Caribbean SIDS national emergency telecommunications planning under the ITU’s national emergency telecommunication plan guidelines.
Second, the analysis of the 600 MHz spectrum award process in Jamaica illustrates how spectrum assignments can embed meaningful connectivity standards – coverage percentages, minimum speeds, signal strength requirements, spectrum caps – directly into licence conditions, creating enforceable outcomes rather than aspirational targets.
Third, the convergence of the fair share debate, renewable energy obligations for data centres and cybersecurity governance reveals a regulatory agenda item that Caribbean SIDS cannot defer: the development of integrated digital infrastructure policies that treat telecommunications, energy and security as jointly governed rather than separately administered domains.
The ITU Secretary-General’s formulation – that connectivity is economic empowerment, societal resilience and the preservation of life – finds its most acute demonstration not in any global statistic, but in the 140,000 Jamaicans who were able to send an SMS to their families within 24 hours of the most powerful hurricane of 2025 making landfall. That outcome was not inevitable. It was the product of advanced regulatory preparation, rapid institutional coordination and the pre-existence of a licensed satellite operator in the jurisdiction. Building frameworks to make that outcome routine – and to go further – is the work that regional telecommunications regulation must now accomplish.
and then