Why Isn't VoIP Taken Seriously In Caribbean Governance?

VoIP.The Caribbean. CARICOM. Why is it that these three things are not heard together more often? Why is it that in Trinidad and Tobago, TSTT, through legal process, caused telecenters to close down because they were offering Voice over IP calls cheaper than TSTT allows?

Perhaps the answer to the latter question is within the question itself, but that doesn't mean that it speaks for CARICOM - and not that encompasses the Caribbean anyway.

In the case of TSTT versus the VoIP centers, the issue was that by contract with TSTT, one cannot use the TSTT infrastructure to do the things that these centers were doing. So it was illegal - but considering that these centers were providing a valuable service through the only infrastructure available, I don't see it as immoral. Frankly, one could set up a satellite connection, bypass TSTT altogether, and go from there. After all, the original Telephone Bill allowed for a business to run it's own private phone network. Why not now?

But the reason I am bringing this up is because, during the Caribbean Internet Governance Forum, we talked about the cost of internet access to countries in the region. Well, shucks. If the multinationals don't want to lower costs for this region - if CARICOM does go to bat - why not swing the VoIP bat at them? Why not tell them, 'OK, fine, we'll pay the same access, but we'll be using VoIP'?

In fact, why not just do it? Why not improve the quality of life of people in the Caribbean by allowing cheaper phone calls to the diaspora outside the Caribbean - not to mention the business related calls? Or why not completely deregularize and invite private citizens - in fact, encourage private citizens - to share satellite networks so that they too can get developed nation access?

Why is it that so many people in the grassroots communities can see the solutions to these problems, and yet when posing these solutions they encounter the political rhetoric of people who talk alot and yet say nothing?

Quietly, the region is using things such as Skype, GoogleTalk, and a plethora of alternatives which allow people to... communicate with people? Again, I am reminded of this quote by Kevin Donahur:

There are two kinds of "globalization" going on simultaneously right now. One is the much-touted economic globalization being pushed by the TNCs, the national elites and their pet institutions like the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO. The other globalization - which you won't hear a peep about, by the way, in the corporate media - is the bottom-up, grassroots, internet-mediated, people-based movement springing up all over the world. It's saying, 'We know how to do renewable energy. We know how to do organic agriculture. We know how to do economic democracy. We know how to create a sustainable society.' All the pieces are there. Now we just have to connect the dots.

When are people going to decide to stop paying for something that they could get cheaper, if they decided to? This isn't an issue of globalization in the context of governmental agencies. This is an issue that one would think that the intelligent people of the world would rally to - instead of calling with long distance charges, why not call PC to PC?

The answer, I think, can be summed up in one word: