Belize Pulse

Two companies, one pension fund, and the satellite they'd rather you didn't have

13 September 2026 · Belize Pulse · 12 min read

Ask anyone on Ambergris Caye about their internet and you get a shrug and a story. This post is the long version of the shrug. It is about three things that happened between 2024 and last month: the phone company’s attempt to buy its only real competitor, the regulator’s refusal to license Starlink, and a pension fund’s letter that connects the two. Everything here comes from documents on the public record, mostly the regulator’s own files, the pension fund’s audited accounts, and the courts. Sources are linked. Where a figure comes from a single source, we say so.

The short version

Belize Telemedia Limited (BTL, the “Digi” brand) is about 92 percent owned by the state, the Social Security Board, and the Central Bank. In January 2026 it agreed to buy Speednet (“Smart”), the country’s only other full-licence carrier, for BZ$80 million. After seven months of hearings, union votes, a Senate walkout, and a protest, Cabinet said no on 13 August 2026 and BTL withdrew on 24 August. The regulator never ruled.

Fifteen months earlier, the same regulator had refused Starlink a licence, after both carriers, BTL’s union, a ministry, and the Social Security Board objected. The pension fund’s letter said the quiet part out loud: a Starlink licence “would lead to a reduction in investment income to the SSB.” Starlink is still not sold in Belize. Mexico has had it since 2021, Guatemala since 2023.

The deal that died

The buyer was BTL. The seller was the Waterloo Group Charitable Trust, which owns 77.5 percent of Speednet and is associated with Lord Michael Ashcroft, with the remaining shares held by Jaime and Renan Briceño, relatives of the Prime Minister. The price, disclosed by Lord Ashcroft’s office in January 2026, was BZ$80 million: BZ$10 million in cash and BZ$70 million in four-year loan notes issued by BTL at 4.5 percent, to be paid out of Smart’s own cash flow (Love FM, 12 Jan 2026).

That history matters because of who Lord Ashcroft is in this story. In 2009 the government took BTL from companies linked to him; the courts and an arbitration tribunal later made Belize pay about BZ$458 million for the shares, and something over half a billion once the bank settlement is added. The Prime Minister puts the total at “over six hundred and ten million dollars” (Love FM, 22 Jan 2025). The tribunal’s valuation found that 60 percent of what BTL was worth in 2009 came from a secret “accommodation agreement” guaranteeing it a 15 percent return, not from the network (Caribbean Court of Justice, 2016). Eleven years later, BTL proposed to pay Ashcroft-linked interests BZ$80 million more for the competitor.

The objections came from everywhere except the regulator. The National Trade Union Congress voted against in January. BTL’s own workers’ union withdrew support in August. The Chamber of Commerce declined a Cabinet meeting. Independent senators walked out. On 4 August BTL’s board voted 8 to 2 to proceed anyway; on 13 August the government’s press office published Cabinet’s position: “After careful deliberation, it is Cabinet’s informed position that it does not support the proposed acquisition,” giving as its standing that “the Government of Belize, the Belize Social Security Board, and the people of Belize are the majority owners of BTL” (Press Office, 13 Aug 2026). On 24 August BTL’s chief financial officer wrote to the regulator that the acquisition “is no longer being contemplated” (PUC, 26 Aug 2026).

Two days later BTL announced the highest profit in its history: BZ$36.9 million for the year to March 2026, up 31 percent, on revenue of about BZ$165 million (Love FM, 26 Aug 2026). Whatever the merger was for, survival was not it.

Two things outlived the deal. In March 2026 the regulator formally declared BTL a dominant operator in most markets, and a statutory instrument froze its tariffs until 31 December 2028. The prices below cannot legally move until then.

The satellite

Starlink applied for an internet service licence in September 2024. The Public Utilities Commission received “a record number of representations”: more than 115 in support, and, in its own words, “very few members of the public voiced opposition” (PUC decision, 20 Jan 2025). The opposition came from the industry.

The regulator published the correspondence, and it is worth reading. On 24 October 2024 a paralegal in BTL’s legal office emailed the Commission under the subject “THE TELECOM INDUSTRY OBJECTION TO THE LICENSING OF STARLINK IN BELIZE,” attaching a joint letter from the “telecom industry stakeholders,” with Speednet’s chief executive copied in (PUC public comment compilation). Three days earlier the same two companies had been fighting each other over spectrum on the same docket. BTL also filed a petition signed by its employees. Its union wrote that a Starlink licence “could undermine the job security of local employees,” and named the shareholders whose returns it worried about: “the Government of Belize (49% ownership) and the Social Security Board (34% ownership)… we are direct beneficiaries of these investments… through our pension funds.”

The Social Security Board wrote its own letter, dated 25 October 2024 and signed by its chief executive, Dr. Leroy Almendarez. It said the fund’s response “places greater emphasis on the social impact based on financial and market analysis, rather than on the technological impact.” It said the fund’s “primary interest is, as a significant Telemedia shareholder, maximizing revenue.” It said “this year our investment in BTL generated $3.8M.” And it concluded: “granting of the License to Starlink will result in lost market share for Belize Telemedia Limited that would lead to a reduction in investment income to the SSB” (PUC public comment compilation).

On 20 January 2025 the Commission refused the licence. Its stated reasons were that it could not regulate a company it could not reach (“an entity that cannot be wholly regulated within its jurisdiction”), that Starlink had never given it Belize prices, and that a foreign, direct-sales model would contribute little to jobs or taxes. It conceded that existing providers “are unable, in the short term, to provide services in the unserved areas,” and it criticised the incumbents’ list of unserved places for omitting the cayes, noting it “is aware of several cayes that have investigated the possibility of importing Starlink” (PUC decision). It said it was following the Cayman Islands’ model. Cayman has since licensed Starlink.

The Prime Minister defended the decision two days later: “our citizens have made an investment of over six hundred and ten million dollars in BTL and we need to try to find that balance… We can’t fight the wealthiest man on earth… they want it all and we can’t allow that” (Love FM, 22 Jan 2025).

What is legal today. Under the Commission’s Order No. 1 of 2025, a household may import and operate a Starlink terminal only with a PUC permit and only in an unserved or underserved location, on a vessel or aircraft, or in a declared emergency. Terminals already in the country had to be registered by 21 March 2025. Non-compliant equipment is liable to confiscation (PUC press release, 20 Jan 2025). San Pedro town is, on the face of it, served. No enforcement action has been published. Starlink’s own availability file lists Belize as “coming soon, starting in 2026,” while Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, the Dominican Republic, and the Cayman Islands are all “launched” (Starlink availability data). Any residential Starlink price you see quoted for Belize is not a Belize price.

Belize is not the only place to refuse Starlink; Suriname and Cuba have too. What is distinctive is the paper trail: a decided application, a published reasoned refusal, and a pension fund on the record explaining why.

The pension fund

The Social Security Board owns 34.31 percent of BTL, 17 million shares bought in two tranches at BZ$5 each in 2010 and 2017. The government holds 49.3 percent plus a special share; the Central Bank about 8 percent. Nine of BTL’s ten directors are appointed by the government or the fund, and the fund’s own chairperson sits on BTL’s board (SSB audited financial statements, 2025; BTL annual director’s report).

The “$3.8M” in the fund’s letter is real: its audited 2024 accounts record a BZ$3,825,000 dividend from BTL. In 2025 the dividend was BZ$4.42 million, and BTL accounted for about 43 percent of everything the fund earned on its investments that year. Those investments are 100 percent inside Belize, and 42 percent of them sit in two state utilities, BTL and BEL.

The fund’s own actuary, reporting in July 2026, wrote that “fund investments are poorly diversified with 100% in Belize,” that returns “have been below the assumed rate,” that up to 20 percent of assets should gradually be invested abroad, and that reserves are projected to peak around 2035 and be “depleted in 2046” (SSB actuarial review, July 2026). The chief executive’s stated reason for defending the BTL return was straightforward: “we do not want to increase the rate of contribution” (Love FM, 1 Nov 2024).

Nobody in this story is acting in bad faith. The fund is protecting pensions. The government is protecting more than half a billion dollars of public money. The union is protecting jobs. Each is behaving rationally, and the sum of it is that a Belizean who wants cheaper, faster internet finds their own pension fund filed against it. It is also fair to say the fund was a victim before it was a beneficiary: it lent BZ$14 million to the BTL employees’ trust in 2005 and was not made whole until December 2024.

What the island actually has

How the signal gets here. Ambergris Caye hangs off a submarine cable from Bomba on the mainland to San Pedro. The backup is a microwave chain from Belize City to Caye Caulker to San Pedro, which BTL upgraded in late 2024 from 4.7 to about 11.7 gigabits per second specifically “in the event of a failure of the Submarine Cable” (BTL spectrum application, Oct 2024). Smart runs its own microwave path. There is no consumer 5G in Belize; both networks are LTE.

What you can buy, at prices frozen until 2028. BTL’s fibre has no data cap. The regulated schedule runs from BZ$39 a month for 20 down / 10 up, through BZ$109 for 80/40, BZ$129 for 120/60, BZ$189 for 150/75, to BZ$209 for 200/75 (PUC, BTL fixed broadband tariff). Where fibre has not reached, Digi’s AirNet fixed wireless is BZ$44 for 150 GB at 15 Mbps or BZ$78 for 300 GB at 30 Mbps, and the filed schedule does not state upload speeds at all. Smart’s home service on the island is LTE fixed wireless at BZ$62 for 24 Mbps or BZ$90 for 44 Mbps, with a one-year contract; its fibre and its 100 to 200 Mbps “boosted” tiers are sold in Belize City and Sarteneja, not here (Smart website). A third licensed provider, Coral Cable Vision on Pescador Drive, serves parts of town.

Mobile, and the oddest fact in the file. A visitor can buy a Digi tourist SIM for BZ$40 with 25 GB of data. A resident paying BZ$45 for the largest prepaid bundle gets 7.5 GB. The tourist gets three times the data for less money, in the same legally filed tariff (PUC, BTL mobile tariff). Prepaid data costs about BZ$6 to 8 a gigabyte on both networks; a 2023 survey put Belize’s mobile data at the most expensive in Central America. Smart has an eSIM but you must activate it in person at a showroom.

How it compares. Ookla’s index puts Belize’s median fixed broadband at 51 Mbps down and 35 up in July 2026, world rank 110, essentially unchanged from a year earlier while the ranking slid eight places (Ookla Global Index). Belize publishes no mobile speed data at all. Islanders told the regulator what that feels like. One wrote: “I personally am on smart as it’s the only option. It is OK but constantly goes up/down or on/off.” A network administrator for a children’s home: “I receive many daily warnings about dropped internet connections. At high use times of the day, the speed is so slow as to make it unusable” (PUC public comment compilation). And one number for what competition is worth: a developer told the regulator in April 2026 that BTL quoted over BZ$100,000 to run fibre to a set of lots and Speednet about BZ$55,000 for comparable work (PUC acquisition comments).

What it means at your house

What we could not confirm

Whether the Social Security Board ever formally voted on the acquisition (reported as a “no objection,” never confirmed). Whether any Starlink terminal has actually been confiscated. Digi’s SIM price and any Digi eSIM. Smart’s upload speeds. And the precise total cost of the 2009 nationalisation, for which we have quoted the adjudicated award and attributed the larger figures to the people who use them. Corrections to [email protected].

The one-line version

Belize paid half a billion dollars to own its phone company, and the price of owning it is that everyone who is supposed to protect you, the regulator, the government, and your pension fund, now has a reason to protect it first.

Belize Pulse is independent and non-commercial. This post quotes public regulatory filings, audited accounts, court judgments, and the local press; every figure links to its source.

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