State of the Internet in the Region
While all the countries have connectivity and offer a full range of Internet services, the main communication pipes serving the region have inadequate capacity and bandwidth, traffic routing is inefficient and the network architecture is not optimized. As a result the service is of low quality and expensive.  Furthermore, 
more than 50% of the telephone and Internet traffic between the countries is routed to the US,  resulting in a great deal of congestion. (1)
The rate structure of Internet services varies in the different countries, especially in the installation and rental of Leased/Dedicated circuit access. The high cost of the international link is a significant component in the structuring of charges.   Most telecommunications providers use time-based pricing for dial-up access. 
It has been difficult to identify the exact number of Internet users in the region, but an estimate of about 50,000 in Central America and the Caribbean Community seems to be about correct.. In Central America, the users are distributed principally among the business and academic sectors and organizations; while in the CARICOM Countries, individual accounts seem to prevail, due to the high cost of leased line rentals. (2)

The Internet in SVG
The Internet first appeared in St. Vincent in 1997. In terms of Internet development, although the past year has seen dramatic growth in connectivity , the current network is fragmented and  relatively sparse. There is no truly national backbone; connectivity is  made more difficult  by the country's mountainous topography, and it is mostly held together by microwave and satellite  connections. SVG is plagued by poor infrastructure, especially at the local loop and central office levels in the cities and  overall in outlying areas.  Unfortunately, all of these factors have seriously impeded both quality and coverage of Internet access. 

Nothing represents the face of modern IT more than the PC.  The domestic PC is the engine that drives many sectors of the IT industry, including Internet service providers  (ISPs), home banking (and many other forms of electronic commerce), CD-ROM sales and the packaged  software industry.  The penetration level of the PC (e.g., home, office,  telecommuting) is the ultimate measure of a nation's current acceptance of IT as a part of everyday life. PC penetration based on data I was given by Andrew Providence (Product Management Executive of Cable and Wireless) would figure to be around 2%.  (C&W customer base for internet access- 1639 as of November 1, 1999  - represents approximately 75% of the recorded PC’s on the island; therefore, there should be an estimated number of 2185 PCs on the island which has a population of 112,000, putting PC penetration 1.95%)  Of these 1639 customers of Internet access, 1328 are individual accounts and the remaining customers represent the business market. (3)

If this number of approximately 2% PC penetration, with Internet users representing approximately 1.5% of the population,  is compared to the United Nations UNDP Human Development Report 1999, SVG fairs well in comparison to overall percentages for the caribbean region.  The estimates that 26.3% of the US population are Internet users  In other OECD countries with the exception of the US, 6.9% of the population are users.  In the Caribbean this figures drops to .5% of the population (4)

Internet Service Providers
At the present,  the only Internet Service Provider (ISP) in SVG is CaribSurf, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cable and Wireless.  CaribSurf provides numerous levels of connectivity to the Internet such  as: Basic Dial Up/Subscriber Access, ISDN access, Leased/Dedicated Circuit Access and Managed Leased COnnections.  They also provide Web Development services (Web Site Development, Web Server Development and Web Server Management) and soon will provide ecommerce packages (see below to find ) similar to what they provide in other regions like the Caymans and Bermuda. 

Internet Hosts
At present their are no internet hosts registered under the  geographic domain name for St. Vincent (vc).  (In July of 1997 , there was one) (5)

Internet Access and Cost
The prices for SVG for Internet access for individual and business accounts are as follows.  (All Prices are quoted in US$)
Individual Accounts
Registration, $37, with 5 free email accounts,
Monthly fees: $13 for 10 hours free access, next 40 hours will be charged at $3 per hour, then each additional hour is $1.87; or $28 for  20 hours free access , next forty hours charged at $2.8 per hour, then each additional hour is $1.87

Business Accounts
Dedicated Internet Access - Speeds available and Costs

	Monthly Port Rental	Port Installation	Monthly Local Loop Rentals	Local Loop Installation
64 Kbps	1315	1500	375	187
128 Kbps	2500	1500	555	187
256 Kbps	5000	1500	555	187
512 Kbps	10,000	1500	555	187

***T-1 rates are also available

C&W Business Domain Hosting Plan costs $2000 annually for  50 MB of storage, and $4300 annually for 200 MB of storage. (6)

ECommerce
The words e-commerce and e-business are just beginning to circulate amongst the business sector in SVG.  The World BAnk project dedicated to reform and regulation of the telecom industry has a training component designed to educate business on e-commerce. 
Many people think of ecommerce as online shopping and in this sense of the definition, SVG has not yet arrived.  However, Ecommerce is much deeper than that. Below is a definition of ecommerce as defined by the  World Trade organization:
"There is no universally agreed definition of electronic commerce.  However, in the World Trade Organization Work Program on Electronic Commerce, it is understood to mean the production, distribution, marketing sale or delivery of goods by electronic means.  A commercial transaction can be divided into three main stages: the advertising and searching stage, the ordering and payment stage and the delivery stage.  Any or al of these can be carried out electronically and may therefore be covered by the concept of 'electronic commerce'" (7)

 I would say that most of the ecommerce in SVG at the moment is in the advertising and searching stage. 
Ebusiness for non-governemtal organizations like the SVG Chamber of Industry and Commerce, the National Development Foundation.  and www.vincy.com (the main domain provider in the country which hosts most of the websites for SVG businesses, government departments etc.) are merely static, advertising and educational sites, which as of yet do not allow user interaction.  There are also   number of the sites are  dedicated to the tourist industry. 
The only exception to these static site would be online casinos, which provide real-time gambling and process electronic  credit card payments.  However, at the moment there are no online casinos in SVG (The one online casino in SVG ceased operations in the summer of 1999).  Online casinos operating in the Caribbean are on the rise,  having  increased from 15 to 40 sites in the last year.

Donald Austin mentioned that C&W has an ecommerce package used presently in Bermuda and the Caymans that processes online payments (both credit card and immediate bank withdrawals as the majority of caribbean consumers do not have credit card) and should be available sometime this year. (8)   I know of no other islands of the OECS that process credit payment online yet (even Barbados to my knowledge has not yet begun to do this).  There are a few sites in other countries that sell items online, but they require a faxed signature and copy of the credit card to process the transaction. 

Conclusion
Up until now, most of the discussion in these islands has been surrounding connectivity to the INternet and not content.  I was pleased to hear that some training initiatives have at least been discussed in the area of ecommerce.  Once the issues of connectivity have been addressed, more focus will need to be placed on content, such as access to electronic publishing tools, training in setting up online storefronts etc.