A recent report examined the tech infrastructure investment gaps identified after a series of interviews with the telecoms firms in the region. The conclusions estimated the total dollar amount of the investment gap and offered several policies and proposals to address it. This is a classic gap-analysis report and a well-trodden deliverable from just about any consulting firm.
One of its main themes is the lack of investment in telecoms infrastructure, such as 5G. While this may be objectively true, there are reasons for this, and I’d like to discuss 5G in the Caribbean in detail. I’ll start with this article about what 5G actually is. The second article will examine its implementation around the Caribbean and what we can expect from its real-world uses.
Its name alludes to its position in the cycle of developing telecom infrastructure. The numeral five tells us its version number. The G, in this case, stands for Generation. So, 5G is the fifth generation of mobile telecom standards and technologies.
A simplified diagram showing the configuration of a 5G network is presented in Figure 1. Please don’t get too lost in the technical details, it doesn’t matter for this discussion. However, if you’re interested, please have a look at the Internet Protocol Journal, Volume 26, Number 2 and Volume 26, Number 3.
Figure 1: Simplified 5G Infrastructure
Source: Internet Protocol Journal, Volume 26, Number 2
From this, you can see that deploying 5G is not just a case of adding a few more antennas and sending faster data down to your smartphone. Deploying 5G requires several major changes to the system, from ensuring the backhaul (the network that transmits data from the antenna to the back-end network and eventually the Internet) has enough capacity and stability to replacing much of the networking equipment used, for reasons of compatibility, capability, and many others.
This is a consequential investment for any telecoms company, particularly for Caribbean operators. However, the main investment is in the building, deployment, and maintenance of antennas. Telecoms companies often acquire land or need to sign leases to obtain rights to erect the equipment on existing land or buildings. Negotiations take time, effort, and a lot of money. Another major cost center is the obtention of rights to use the frequencies (typically called Spectrum) that 5G requires. The choice and use of spectrum is decided by the countries’ regulators themselves, often involving protracted negotiations and auctions that required telecom companies to bid to secure these resources. And this is even before the first bits of metal are delivered onsite for assembly! And as we can observe throughout the region, these onerous requirements have contributed to a stunted deployment despite the perceived need for such a technology.
But that’s a big question that reports like these tend to skip over. Demand is often taken as a given, not necessarily an objective estimation or analysis. It often relies on the assumption that 5G is actually necessary for development in regions like the Caribbean. There is plenty of reason to challenge that standpoint —without necessarily challenging the report’s outcomes— and it could be argued that the slow rollout suggests that there is little end user appetite for the mass adoption of the technology. Notwithstanding, the question of price dynamics when we consider markets that are traditionally skewed towards pre-paid offers rather than post-paid, something that I will discuss in a future article.
Although complementary, competing services like satellite telecommunications systems can often be considered more appropriate than the broad deployment of 5G, most smartphone use doesn’t require such impressive speeds—remember, 5G can download up to 1 Gb/s. Fixed systems like computers and other internet-connected devices require fast connections, so the need for omnipresent 5G is not that compelling. 5G is looking more and more like a hard sell.
4G was a shocking business case in the Caribbean. 5G is a disaster
It is also supposed to fill the gaps left by previous deployments of telecoms technologies like 3G and 4G, something that hasn’t uniformly deployed in the Caribbean either. 5G is a lot faster and provides enough ‘space’ for many more simultaneous connections within a defined boundary. In other words, lots more people in the same area can connect and get a decent bandwidth. And this is a good use case, but tends to be limited practically. It is not every day there are 10s of thousands of people crammed into a small area in our region.
And 5G requires more antennae physically positioned to cover the same area as a 4G deployment. So 5G will not solve one of the main issues we have in the Caribbean regarding access to high-quality Internet networks, unless you live in a very densely populated area. Much of the population can be described as “Internet have-nots” and are rural and distant from urban areas, and 5G is just not suitable for this application either. This is observed when we look at current deployments of 5G in the Caribbean and further afield.
One example is Martinique, where the operators have only just enabled their 5G services after a couple of years of tests and wrangling with the telecoms authorities (ARCEP), who gladly sold a licence to the 5G spectrum (for a song), but didn’t allow the operators to deploy immediately. But now that the rollout is beginning, it is concentrated in a small area of the island, the conurbation of Fort-de-France and Lamentin, with the rest of the island (crucially very poorly served by to-the-home broadband services) largely ignored.
5G will be generalised at some point, but that will happen when the cost and maturity make it more accessible to smaller economies. The use case generalisation remains under question, however, as most people neither need nor will use the greatly enhanced speeds afforded by the technology.
AI is everywhere. Moreover, organisations are being continually encouraged to integrate generative AI models into their systems and processes, as greater efficiency, increased productivity and cost savings could be realised. However, what is not always appreciated is that not only is your organisation using AI, but companies from which you purchase goods and services may also be using AI, which raises several issues that ought to be considered.
A recent article by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) highlighted how digital technology is transforming the audit process and advocated for the adoption of technology in auditing, particularly by smaller firms. Though there might be the perception that smaller audit firms are less likely to engage with advanced technology, they tend to be more agile than their larger counterparts in selecting and using software solutions that are becoming increasingly powerful. Further, various audit software solutions were suggested in the article that could improve audit quality and the bottom line for these firms.
But again, if audit firms, which by the nature of their function are supposed to verify compliance, what risks (if any) could clients be exposed to when AI is used? And since AI use is virtually inevitable, how can clients ensure that risks are being managed by their auditors?
How can AI be used in the audit process?
Although the ACCA article would have focused primarily on financial auditing, AI tools have the potential to revolutionise both financial auditing and internal auditing.
First, AI tools can facilitate enhanced data analysis, such as detecting fraud, assessing risk as well as being used in the audit planning process. In detecting fraud, AI algorithms can analyse vast datasets to identify unusual patterns, anomalies, and potential fraud indicators, including suspicious transactions and money laundering schemes. Further, it can help evaluate risks more accurately by analysing historical data, market trends, and regulatory changes, thus allowing auditors to prioritise their efforts and focus on areas of higher risk and potential control weaknesses, along with providing insights and recommendations based on the data analysed, thus enhancing auditors’ judgment and decision-making.
Second, the considerable processing capability of AI also allows routine tasks to be automated, such as data entry, document review, and accounts/transactions reconciliation, freeing up auditors to focus on more complex and value-added activities and resulting in a more efficient (and possibly faster) auditing exercise. Finally, unlike human workers, who can make errors or make poor judgements, AI can help ensure consistent application of auditing standards and reduce the risk of human error – provided the platforms are properly trained.
Possible drawbacks to using AI when auditing
On the other hand, the use of AI ought to be carefully managed. First, AI platforms are only as good as the data upon which they have been trained, in other words, there is a heavy reliance on high-quality data, especially to contextualise the analysis that must be performed. Inaccurate or biased data can lead to erroneous outputs that auditors and their clients could be relying on to make high-stakes decisions.
Second, it is crucial to appreciate that although AI models are manmade, to some degree, they are also black boxes, as it can be difficult to explain how they arrive at certain outputs. As a result, it can be challenging to understand the rationale behind a model’s decisions, especially complex models, which are crucial for audit transparency and accountability.
Third, tied to the datasets used to train AI models, there is always a risk of bias. For example, the models used may have been developed and trained based on datasets generated in developed countries, which may not make allowances for contextual differences in developing regions such as the Caribbean. Hence, if the data used to train AI models is biased, the models themselves can perpetuate and even amplify those biases.
Fourth, in light of the vast datasets AI models use, the fact that it can be difficult to expunge information entered into a model, and the growing concerns about data privacy and security, the systems and protocols needed to address such issues must be carefully considered. For example, the handling and processing of sensitive financial data would require robust data security measures and governance structures to be established to prevent unauthorised access and use.
Finally, AI models and the environments in which they are used are continually evolving. They thus require ongoing maintenance and updates to ensure their accuracy and effectiveness and, consequently, access to expertise that may not be resident locally, especially in (certain) Caribbean countries.
Questions organisations ought to ask when engaging auditors
Although the drawbacks outlined are worrying, if there is a legal or regulatory obligation to have audits regularly conducted, they cannot be avoided. Instead, clients ought to ensure that they can ask their auditors the right questions to ensure that potential challenges have been addressed or, at the very least, have been considered.
First, cognisant of the important role that data and datasets play in developing accurate and robust AI models, data quality and data integrity are crucial. Robust data quality controls are essential to generate reliable AI-driven insights. Further, biased data leads to biased AI outputs, potentially having an impact on financial decisions and regulatory compliance. Questions that can help you probe this with the auditing team include the following:
What controls are in place to detect and address data quality issues?
What measures have been put in place to ensure the data used to train and operate your AI models is accurate, complete, and free from bias?
Second, noting that both your organisation and the auditors may be relying on the outputs produced from the AI models, the confidence that can be placed on the outputs ought to be interrogated. It is thus important to have some understanding of – and the auditors ought to be able to explain – how the models were developed, to have some insight into the robustness of the outputs and the extent to which they could be trusted. It is also crucial to understand whether appropriate steps are being taken to keep the models accurate and up to date. To that end, there ought to be regular model monitoring and retraining. Questions that could be asked include:
What methodology is being used for developing and validating your AI models?
How do you ensure the model is accurate and reliable?
What margin of error would you be confident applying to the model’s outputs?
How do you address the risk of model drift, i.e., changes in the model’s performance over time?
Third, a natural follow-up to having confidence in an AI model’s outputs is the auditors’ ability to proffer some explanation on how the model reached certain conclusions. Being able to explain AI outputs is crucial for understanding and trusting such results, especially when high-stakes decisions must be made. Further, to ensure responsible AI use, it is important that the auditors can identify and address when an AI model produces ‘off outputs’, that is, outputs that may be erroneous, suggest bias, or are outside expected norms. Questions that could be asked to explore these matters include:
Can you explain the rationale behind the AI model’s decisions?
Can you provide insights into how the model arrives at its conclusions?
How do you address the risk of unintended consequences or biases in the AI model’s outputs?
Fourth, consistent with the emphasis being placed on AI governance, there ought to be strong internal controls to ensure the responsible and ethical use of AI. More importantly, the adopted governance policy must be implemented, with the requisite systems established to monitor its implementation and to update and improve the policy and processes as appropriate. The following two questions can help you start a conversation on this issue:
What internal controls are in place to manage the risks associated with AI use, such as data security, model integrity, and ethical considerations?
How do you ensure compliance with relevant regulations and ethical guidelines related to AI?
Finally, one of the stated benefits of using AI is its automation capability, which can reduce human involvement in the data entry, processing and analysis phases. However, human oversight is still crucial, especially since the expertise needed to manage the AI models may far be removed from the auditing personnel with whom you will be interacting. AI models must be comprehensively managed. The processes and outputs must be closely monitored so that appropriate and early interventions and corrections can be made to maintain the responsible and ethical use of AI, especially since outputs may be used to respond to complex or high-stakes situations.
What role do human experts play in the AI decision-making process?
How is human oversight integrated into the workflow?
At what points or for what scenarios would humans intervene in the AI decision-making process?
How do you ensure that human judgment is effectively applied to AI-generated insights?
Although the above questions may appear intimidating, it is vital to be proactive in ensuring that you are well informed about how AI will be used in the auditing process, and that the auditors have put the requisite systems in place to facilitate ethical and responsible AI use. Your organisation’s relationship with its auditors is one built on trust. In being called upon to fairly and correctly evaluate your organisation and to provide advice or recommendations as considered appropriate, auditors wield considerable power. They must thus be seen to be meticulous and prudent in how they exercise their influence and be able to authoritatively manage and defend the use of any assistive tools upon which they choose to rely.
Let us introduce ourselves and give you some background on what we’ll do here.
Michele
An experienced Consultant, Manager, Regulator, Engineer and Author, Michele Marius has over 20 years of experience in the ICT and telecommunications space. She has worked in both the private and public sectors and in developed and developing countries in the Caribbean, Southeast Asia and the South Pacific.
Currently, Michele is the Director of ICT Pulse Consulting Limited, a research and advisory firm specialising in a broad range of ICT and telecommunications issues, and is based in Jamaica. She is also the Founder of Project Calls, an online platform collating tender opportunities across the Caribbean region.
Finally, Michele is the Publisher, Editor and Primary Contributor of ICT Pulse. This well-respected and longstanding online publication discusses topical telecommunications and ICT issues from a Caribbean perspective, with a wide readership across the region and internationally. She also hosts the ICT Pulse Podcast, through which to deep dive into important ICT/technology issues occurring in the Caribbean, thus enriching the conversation we, in the region, could be having.
Matthew
I’m Matthew Cowen, and I have been working in the IT industry in one form or another for around 30 years and have lived in the Caribbean for over 18 years. Lately, I’ve been concentrating on the digital ecosystems of the Caribbean and written reports analysing diverse topics such as infrastructure, cybersecurity, and the ICT market in the Caribbean. Those reports have gone to Governments, NGOs, businesses and individuals looking to invest/set up businesses that relate to tech.
Our proposition
A couple of years ago, we spoke together and came to the same conclusion by experience and observation. Research reports in the Caribbean are basically… broken. We don’t mean they are useless or shouldn’t exist. Of course not! We’ve both contributed to them and will continue to do so.
What we mean by “broken” is that they target those that can afford to commission them and are then accessible to a relatively small population of the Caribbean: large businesses, governments, etc. The everyday businessman, small business, startup, and burgeoning entrepreneur are all essentially excluded. When they get their hands on these reports, they’re out of date or irrelevant. So often, we’ve seen reports with titles that include “Latin America and the Caribbean” when a simple search in the pdf reveals nothing about the Caribbean. We know it’s not the researcher’s or writer’s fault; the data is often not there or is so poor that making sense of it is difficult.
We’re victims of it in our work, too!
Let’s look at a couple of data points. Approximately 95% of all businesses in the region are MSMEs. They account for approximately 60% of employment but only around a quarter of GDP. That means those who most need access to the information contained in these reports are the ones least likely to be able to afford to commission them, let alone wait for 9 to 18 months before they are available.
These reports take months to write, design, approve, and release. They are out of date before you can download them, and this is only getting worse as change accelerates. As Heraticlus said, “Change is the only constant in life.” Our world is accelerating and no longer moving at an easily understood pace.
Reports tend to be too specific in scope, answering specific or closed questions that are gold for the requesting party but virtually useless for the rest of us. However, people are more connected than ever —for good or for bad— which puts pressure on the information cycle to be faster, not necessarily better. People are generally more connected and follow along near real-time, rendering traditional reporting irrelevant. Astonishingly, around 5 billion people use some form of Social Media.
When you look at “digital”, it used to mean IT or IT-related. It was vertical. It was siloed. It was the computer department’s problem. That couldn’t be further from the truth in 2025. As digital transformation takes root and the digitalisation of everything is more commonplace, “digital” is horizontal, transversal, and touches everything. And we mean EVERYTHING!
Too much information is online, and more are generated as you read this. The amount produced by humans already connected to the internet is staggering —around 50% of the population. DOMO estimated that by 2020, every human connected to the internet would generate, on average, 1.7MB of data every second. Our World in Data estimated that there would be 3.4 billion internet users in 2016, and more recent estimates place that number at approximately 5 billion people.
Having access to this much information is not always a good thing. Having little or no experience with much of this data, having little inclination to understand deeply, or, as is more likely, having no time to distil and process it, makes it difficult for businesses to make better and informed decisions. It is harder and harder to navigate the information high seas.
We’re trying to fix this. Let us explain.
We promise to provide research briefs that are both dynamic and timely. Dynamic because data changes as our understanding changes; it’ll be integrated into our reports. Timely, because fast access to these changes is key to keeping up with the world.
We’re promising to provide open-ended reports that try to answer broader questions and dig into the specifics of a particular topic. We’ll distil the information into manageable parts without forgetting the wider context. We’ll help you understand the pressing practical questions of today and provide insight into the bigger picture. We’ll even recommend actions you can take now or in the future.
We promise not to shy away from the Caribbean context, regardless of how difficult it is to obtain data and reliable information. We promise to fix that as much as possible by providing access to first-party data as we collect and generate it. Please give us a little space, as that takes time and requires your participation.
To do this, we’re launching the Caribbean Digital Compass.
The compass is one of the most useful tools ever invented for navigating the globe’s rocks and shores. Without it, many sailors would have been shipwrecked or sunk into the sea over the rocks they were trying to avoid.
Our compass is digital and aligned to the Caribbean context without ignoring the rest of the world’s effect on us.
We hope the Caribbean Digital Compass will become part of your arsenal of tools for driving your business and yourself forward in your digital ecosystem.
We promise to provide you with briefs that are as factual as they are helpful and digestible. Gone are the days when business leaders like you could plough through 300-page essays written in a dry tone.
We plan to produce reports on individual countries over the coming weeks and months. This will set the context and give you an invaluable resource to understand “digital” in the Caribbean country-by-country. We’ll start with the larger markets and add the others as we progress.
However, that is not all. Once this process has started and is progressing well, we’ll begin to introduce topics of research that require a deeper dive, producing deeply researched information as it becomes available. Examples of these reports would be cybersecurity (possibly the most pressing issue for the world aside from climate change), digital health in the Caribbean, or Artificial Intelligence.
We hope you’ll join us in this journey, and we hope you’ll get involved in the discussion. As more of us join, our collective knowledge can only increase, helping you and the others around you.
We hope to provide you with something affordable, unique, accessible, and enduring value. We plan to expand our offerings and services later, too.
Why not drop us a note (reply to this email or comment directly on the website) with your thoughts, aspirations, and anything you’d like us to research? This is for you!
