When I wrote about the recent internet outage in Trinidad and Tobago, I was waiting to find out what the actual cause was so I could follow up. As usual, the talking heads did not have anything of worth to say.

In fact, what they had to say seemed pretty insulting to me.

What TSTT did manage to do was give people free mobile data for the day, which certainly helped those who were using their mobile data, but did nothing for the people who were subscribing to TSTT/bmobile/Amplia for internet access that wasn’t mobile.

But the explanation explained nothing.

…In a recording attached to the release, CEO Lisa Agard apologised for the disruption and its impact on customers.

“To demonstrate our regret, we have decided that all customers will be given free data until midnight.”

She explained, “The disruption was triggered by an unexpected circumstance which regrettably persisted until 11 am.”…

“TSTT restores services, gives customers free data for rest of day“, Trinidad and Tobago Newsday, Vishanna Phagoo, Wednesday 9 August 2023

“The disruption was triggered by unexpected circumstance” is the equivalent of a 5 year old explaining something as, “Fall down go BOOM!”.

I’d like a better answer, but I’m used to non-answers by politicians and their corporate cousins, CEOs, who are politicians as well.

To balance that observation, I’ll point out that she has said very smart things too – such as here:

After comparing how much Big Tech – Meta, Alphabet, Netflix, TikTok, Amazon and Microsoft – pays in other countries, CEO of the Telecommunications Services of TT (TSTT) Lisa Agard said Trinidad and Tobago earns only two per cent, since they already pay in South Korea, Australia and the US.

Speaking at Canto’s 38th annual conference and trade exhibition at JW Marriott Turnberry, Miami on Tuesday, Agard said, “We are in an existential crisis, and the crisis is driven by Big Tech operators generating a considerable amount of traffic on our networks.”

She said Big Tech is responsible for 67 per cent of the total internet traffic in the Caribbean, but offers no network investment…

“Over US$500m for network upgrades, only 2% back from Big Tech“, Trinidad and Tobago Newsday, Vishanna Phagoo, Wednesday 19 July 2023

I’m not saying that the two are related. Trinidad and Tobago is rarely known for project efficiency, and TSTT suffers ownership by the Government of Trinidad and Tobago which is certainly not known to citizenry for efficiency. That being said, TSTT has a pretty good track record. I use Amplia presently, which was bought by TSTT, and I’d say that the service overall is world class.

What I’m saying is that they could be indirectly related.

However, what is interesting, and a bit refreshing, is that a data driven approach is presented in the latter quote, where the case is made that 67% of traffic in the Caribbean goes to the big technology companies. It begs the question about how much internet traffic the Caribbean gets on the global scale. It’s hard to say, since the amount of traffic hides in how one defines the Caribbean.

Internet penetration is something worth looking into, where we find Aruba at the top for 97.2% and Trinidad and Tobago at the bottom at 79% as of January 2023.

Should Big Tech be paying for infrastructure upgrades in the Caribbean? Now there’s a ripe question. Honestly, my opinion is that there should be investment – but without knowing how much the Caribbean internet traffic accounts for on a global scale, it’s hard to say how much.

It does fit, though. The Caribbean is a region of kickbacks, and Big Tech isn’t good with kickbacks. They spend most of their money lobbying. Done in the interests of the majority, kickbacks are not corruption.