SpeedNet in the running

Belize mobile operator SpeedNet has signed up over 40,000 subscribers, up from around 15,000 at the start of the year, and expects to have 46,000 customers by the end of December, its COO Narda Garcia told BNamericas. The company offers services under the Smart brand and is the only mobile competitor to the tiny country’s incumbent telco BTL, which has around 135,000 customers. Garcia told the news service that Smart is connecting some 1,500 subscribers per month to its 800MHz CDMA2000 1xEV-DO network, and is providing strong competition to BTL’s DigiCell GSM service by introducing concepts such as per-second billing, offering broad coverage and targeting low-end users in rural as well as urban areas, which represent some 60% of revenues.