From Caribbean Press Releases is this information about a ICT project in Trinidad and Tobago that has to date not been mentioned on the Ministry of Public Administration and Information website or publicised locally in Trinidad and Tobago. What hardware will be used? What software will be used on these recycled computers? :

Commonwealth — July 25, 2007 — Trinidad and Tobago will benefit from a Commonwealth Connects programme to fund a computer refurbishment project that will benefit schools and communities, particularly those in need.

The $100,000 project known as Computers for Communities will be managed by the Ministry of Public Administration and Information. It involves the collection of used computers donated by Caribbean governments and the private sector for re-use in Trinidad and Tobago through upgrading and repair. This exercise addresses the environmental concerns involving the disposal of computer equipment by refurbishing used computers instead of discarding them. The Government of Trinidad and Tobago will provide supplementary funding for the completion of this project.

The Computers for Communities project involves cleaning, assembly, software installation and configuration, quality assurance testing, distribution and installation of refurbished computers. This will help expand the pool of trained information and communication technology (ICT) technicians besides creating employment in the ICT sector and encouraging good corporate citizenship.

This project will promote the use of ICT in Trinidad and Tobago. It is in line with one of the focus areas of the Commonwealth Connects programme of promoting local access and connectivity within the Commonwealth. In Trinidad and Tobago, it is estimated that 10 per cent of the country’s population of over a million have internet access. This computer refurbishment project will enhance internet usage in the Caribbean country.

Another related article and a Google Search for more articles about this

The Telcommunications Authority of Trinidad and Tobago (TATT) has made available for a second round of consultation the document : Proposed Costing Methodology for the Telecommunications Sector.

This document has been updated with comments and recommendations from the first consultation phase in December 2006. Interested parties are invited to submit comments on the revised document to the Authority using the prescribed form (DOC ; 107K) and emailing it to policy a.t tatt.org.tt , on, or before Friday, August 24th, 2007.

View/download : Proposed Costing Methodology for the Telecommunications Sector (PDF ; 97 pages ; 591K)

An updated version of TATT’s “Position and Procedures in respect of Non-Objections for Applications to Town and Country Planning Division for Site Approval of Telecommunications Structures” (what a mouthful!) is online.

http://www.tatt.org.tt/ddocs/Tower_Procedures.pdf

Mark Lyndersay’s BitDepth July 17th, 2007 column in the Trinidad Guardian talks about Flow Trinidad’s expected broadband upgrade scheduled to take place in October 2007 with the connection of the ARCOS cable from Curacao to Trinidad by Columbus Networks (formerly New World Network). The prices on a Flow Trinidad brochure can be found in this post on the TTCS discussion mailing list.

Sigh….as a Flow Broadband subscriber who gets 20Kbytes/sec on a good day (my area hasn’t been upgraded to digital cable), this can’t happen soon enough.

(Edit Aug 12th, 2007 : adjusted BitDepth link to Mark Lyndersay’s website. Also see later post on Flow’s broadband pricing )