Like the majority of Caribbean countries, Bahamas appeared to be the country with highly developed and matured Internet infrastructure that let the country to become one of the world’s e-commerce and offshore centers. The Internet has yet to have much substantial influence on the conduct of offshore business from the Bahamas.
Bahamas thus offers a full range of telecom services, despite being characterized by small markets in terms of population. In the country liberalization agreements have been reached like in most countries of the region.
The primary telecommunications provider for the Bahamas is BaTelCo, representing fully government owned corporation that offers telephone, internet and wireless services. Being an official government corporation BaTelCo falls under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Works and Utilities.
Besides, a number of other large Internet services providers operate successfully in Bahamas, like the followings:
- Coralwave (www.coralwave.com) - offers cable, direct fibre Internet connection
- Batelnet (www.batelnet.bs) - provides dial up, DSL access
- Speedway Internet (www.xspbahamas.com) – delivers dial up, DSL, wireless connection
- DSL Bahamas (www.dslbahamas.com) provides DSL services
- BGC (www.bgcfreedom.com) offers wireless connection
- Out Island Internet (www.abacoinet.com) - dial up, wireless Internet services
Another main operator, Out Island Internet, located by the way on one of the Bahamas’ island, Abaco, currently focuses its Internet connection business on tourism in the Abacos. The ISP aims to enable everyone to have the World available a mouse click away, making Internet available for even cruising yachtsmen.
As for the Internet penetration, it has surged considerably for the decade and has hovered 46% by now with 142,000 people connected. That may be compared to the data presented by internerworldstats.com, that shows only 4.3% penetration level in 2000, that increased to almost 31% by 2007.
Country’s Internet top-level domain is .bs, administered by the College of the Bahamas. Two years registration agreement is extremely expensive $ 899.00 for .bs and $ 495.00 .com.bs. However there are no any special requirements or restrictions for the registration. Local presence is not required as well.
Like in other Internet developed countries the direct registration is also possible under second level domains in this archipelago country. Only five second-level domains exist in Bahamas:
- com.bs - Commercial Entities
- net.bs - Network Providers
- org.bs - Non-commercial Organizations
- edu.bs - Educational Institutions
- gov.bs - Government Ministries and Agencies
Being an offshore jurisdiction, the Bahamas provide a tax-neutral platform to operate a business and make sales, where the cost of skilled labour is oftentimes lower than in onshore jurisdictions.
Bahamas has the professional base to support e-commerce operations, banking, accounting and marketing services. And because of the high degree of offshore activity, there is less red tape and bureaucracy in terms of establishing and responding to the needs of the industry.
The government also participates actively in deployment of e-commerce industry in the country, giving significant support. Thus, former Minister of Financial Services and Investments Allyson Maynard Gibson set a formidable program of goals for the development of e-government in the Bahamas, and in 2003, reported significant progress, with computerisation of the Companies Registry of the Registrar General's Department accomplished on time by the end of 2002, according to lowtax.net.
The newly-computerized Registry allows for a wide variety of functions to be carried electronically:
- Electronic submission of incorporation documents;
- Paperless procedure for incorporation;
- Comprehensive name edit: Uniqueness, name endings, embedded sensitive words, etc;
- Registry approval and filing initiates automated incorporation process;
- Payment via credit card or Payment on Account;
- Electronic receipt issued to Agent;
- Documents, electronic as well as paper, company particulars, payment history, etc. available for agent review via online Company Inquiry.
In 2005, Mrs Maynard-Gibson announced that the deeds and documents section of the Registrar General's Department had been fully automated and is available to the public online.
In 2001 Bahamas’ leading provider of information technology, e-commerce and communications solutions Systems Resource Group (SRG) launched a network operation centre in Freeport, Grand Bahama, since the Freeport market is seen as a major opportunity for the expansion of e-commerce. A major feature of the Freeport operations is the ability to connect businesses that have Nassau and Freeport offices.
SRG also delivers the range of Internet-based eFAX services in Freeport. Users of eFAX can take benefits from enhanced features for the sending of international faxes, including store and forward, broadcast fax, and accounting codes.
The other main e-commerce solutions provider, Emagine Ltd, the same year set the Bahamas' first purpose-built data centre to house e-commerce businesses, with plans for expansion to larger facilities once the demand for the centre's services has been established. This center aims to accommodate servers that can be used for all types of Internet business including website hosting, ASP services and data processing/distribution. Located at the heart of the financial services region of Nassau, the centre can house up to 400 servers.
A little bit later Secure Hosting Limited opened a new facility in Nassau providing the offshore e-business sector with services such as commercial web hosting, server co-location, offshore encrypted data storage and virtual office solutions.
The attractiveness of e-commerce activity in Bahamas is reflected in its mobility that let businesses separate activities that formerly would have been accomplished only in one location. So, country’s matured ICT infrastructure, sophisticated e-commerce sector attractive for the variety of offshore businesses give Bahamas an opportunity to become soon one of the world’s offshore centers.
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Quelle/Source: Ecommerce Journal, 25.02.2010
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