Being one of the Central American countries, Belize has more in common with the Caribbean island-states than with its Central American neighbours. That makes Belize to be culturally unique among Central American nations. This peculiarity is reflected in various languages spoken, like Kriol and Spanish; and English is official, meantime, unlike in its neighboring countries. It is the only nation in Central America with a British colonial heritage, and is the only constituent nation of the Commonwealth of Nations in its region. Having the population of less than 310,000 Belize considers to have the lowest population density in the Central American region and one of the lowest in the world.

Until recently, Internet connection in Belize has been patchy and very expensive. Currently, Internet in Belize getting available wider, being rolled out across the country. Country’s national telecom company Belize Telecommunications or Belize Telemedia Limited (BTL) for a long had been the only operator offering Internet connection service. Despite Belize was among the first Latin American countries to privatize its national telecom company in 1988, but gave the incumbent provider BTL, a 15-year monopoly concession until end-2002 for all fixed-line and mobile phone services. At present, in spite of theoretical liberalization, BTL still retains its monopolistic positions.

Offered by BLT DSL service is now available in major population centers but it was too much expensive in comparison with most other countries. The maximum speed available is 256 up by 512 down and the costs of $250 a month. The cheapest DSL is 64 up by 128 down was at $45 a month. However, future increasing competition made the monopolist cut the prices.

Targeting to strengthen the country's telecommunications infrastructure, the Belize’s government in 2003 moved to increase competition in the sector by allowing Innovative Communication Corporation to acquire a controlling stake in BTL.

In 2005, BTL started rolling out new wireless internet services, starting with the launch of the Internet HotSpot service. This increased internet accessibility for business travellers and tourists by providing high-speed wireless access in large hotels, airports and other transit points. Later in the same month, BTL deployed its wireless internet coverage to areas outside of the coverage of its wired DSL service.

In 2003 BTL got it’s first main competitor, International Telecommunications (Intelco), a provider of new generation scalable broadband wireless access systems, that unfortunately became bankrupt by November 2004.

The other company attempting to destroy BTL’s monopoly is SpeedNet Communications (SpeedNet), which began to build a CDMA2000 1X network in September 2004. SpeedNet offers Internet access, wireless broadband and various corporate services as well as mobile telephony. The company operates from downtown Belize City, and has its customer service showroom on the Northern Highway. In addition to cellular services, Speednet offers SMS text messaging services, an international cellular calling plan, a wide variety of cellular accessories, and adequate customer service.

Currently, satellite Internet has been deployed. Two companies, Direct TV and Starband are offering satellite Internet access. Satellite Internet is ideal for those who want to live on the beach or in the countryside where cables and telephone wires are not yet available.

Satellite Internet is relatively cheap for Belize, according to www. belize.com, about $60 per a month for unlimited use. The speed is about 28 kbps up and 600 kbps down. Starband is now offering its SOHO satellite Internet service with 100 kbps up and 1 mbps down. This cost about $150 a month.

The successful development of Internet in Belize can be reflected by Internet penetration growth. Thus, the volume of Internet users in Belize changed from slightly over 6.1% in 2000 to 11% or 34,000 subscribers at the end of 2009, according to www.internetworldstats.com data. Though the increase made up almost 130% for the decade, Belize grabs only 0.1% share of Central American Internet market, reasoned by its small size mostly along with relatively low level of Internet access spread.

Country’s Internet code top-level domain (ccTLD) is .bz, administered by the University of Belize. Registry under the .bz domain is accomplished via Belize Network Information Center (managed by University Management Ltd). Surprisingly, two years registration contract is relatively cheap, compared to Internet connection prices, from $ 59.50 up to $ 119.00. Moreover, there are no any special restrictions or requirements to be registered under the domain; thus, for example, local presence is not required.

At one point, .bz domains were being marketed by an American company as standing for "business", and that company took legal action against ICANN in an attempt to block the .biz domain as "unfair competition". As for now, the registry is in Belize, but is still marketing the domain outside the country as "meaning business". Internationalized domains with a wide assortment of non-ASCII characters are also available.

Interestingly, a number of Italy websites use this domain, because the abbreviation of Bolzano (de. Bozen) and the official abbreviation of the province of Bolzano-Bozen is BZ. So, many websites use the Italian subdomain .bz.it. Servers for the Open Source game BZFlag often use names ending in .bz.

It’s also possible to be registered directly under some second-level domains, but these are not actively required:
com.bz -commercial
edu.bz - educational
gov.bz - government
net.bz -networking
org.bz – organizations


Speaking about e-commerce sector, it’s important to notice Belize has become one of the world’s offshore jurisdictions. Belize, meantime, became early in passing legislation to enable and regulate Internet gambling. Its Computer Wagering Licensing Act, 1995, which came into force in 1996, provides for the proper conduct and regulation of gambling via the Web.This has been successful in attracting some operators, although the tax regime is not so perfect.

Fatefully, Belize’s government asserts influence on development of ICT sector, as well as electronic commerce deployment. Thus, in 2000 the government encouraged the opening of a private e-commerce park, opened by Datapro International Inc in the Belize City Export Processing Zone (EPZ) thereby guaranteeing freedom from taxes to incoming dotcoms. The park, the only one in the region, has successfully stimulated Belize's e-business sector. It has generated over 650 full time jobs so far and is growing rapidly.

Companies in EPZ advanced from a highly attractive tax and customs regime. An on-site Customs Office guarantees rapid delivery of incoming goods. Bandwidth is available from 64 kbps to T1 at rates between $950.00 and $14,200.00, according to www.lowtax.net. These are all-inclusive costs including the installation of underground fiber optic cables with direct satellite connection.

For on-line betting and gaming operators, a particularly attractive feature of the park coupling of the IBC regime with that of the Export Processing Zone regime, a result which legally bypasses the need for licensing under the Computer Wagering Licensing Act. The Attorney General has confirmed that once an e-business is validly established through the park's official attorneys there is no need for any other license.

Despite Belize ICT infrastructure is not on the highest stage, the country shows good signs of progress in this industry. Nevertheless, this small Central American country managed to become one of the offshore jurisdictions, with ambitions to become a leading e-commerce location. It has already proved its ability to become soon one of the e-commerce leaders by creation of Export Processing Zone.