High Tech
Solomon's NGO Puts People First
Bringing The Internet To Rural People is Pfnet's Specialty
Highways, let alone freeways, are non-existent in the Solomon Islands, but some of the nation’s remote and isolated settlements are getting hooked up to the world’s superhighway of Internet technology. It is an incredible development that could put this island nation on the world map for the imaginative use of cutting edge technology in primitive societies.
Already, Pfnet, the Solomon Islands People First Network initiative, is a finalist in the Stockholm Challenge 2002, and has been entered into the InfoDev ICT Story Competition of 2002; competitions that recognize the ingenious use of technology for the development of human life.
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Pfnet is basically an email system, by which villagers in faraway islands like Ontong Java, in the far north-east of the group, can get in touch instantly with a relative in the capital Honiara, or someone else overseas, simply at the press of a button. And the beauty of the system, and what makes it successful so far is its low cost. Under Pfnet, an email sent from one of its rural centers to anywhere around the globe costs a mere SOL$2, irrespective of the length of the message.
Established as a non-profit organization, Pfnet has been able to run a very successful Internet café in downtown Honiara, and with 12 workstations and charging reasonable rates, it is the main public e-café in the capital.
With low cost being a major plus, an added feature is Pfnet’s dependability and reliability. Radio telephones, a common means of communication for rural settlers in the Pacific, are not expensive to set-up, they are expensive to maintain and pretty unreliable. Radio telephone will also not work if your telephone party is not aware that you will be making such a call, and the calls will still have to be paid even though the person you had wanted to speak to is not available.
By the middle of this year, Pfnet has had four remote stations linked up to the superhighway of electronic mail. These are Sasamungga in Choiseul, Pirupiru in Ulawa, Graciosa Bay in Santa Cruz and Sigana in Isabel. More funds could see the opening of 25 remote email stations across the Solomon Islands’ nine provinces. In the immediate term, three more stations are in the pipeline—at the Vanga Rural Teacher Training Center in Kolombangara, Silolo Kastom Garden Center in North Malaita and Pelau in Ontonga Java.
Therein lies another beauty about this electronic mail network. Not only are the remote and largely inaccessible areas able to communicate with their wantoks (fellow clan or family members) and the outside world, Pfnet can also be used for other important purposes. Distance education for instance.
“In fact, our station at Sasamungga at this very moment is running a project which is helping students use the email station in order to do University of the South Pacific courses,” explains Pfnet advisor David Leeming.
“They are typing their assignments into a computer and emailing them to their tutors and they have weekly contacts with their tutors.” Leeming, a United Nations Development Program expert, is optimistic the benefits of Pfnet can also be used in other sectors like health, agriculture and finance.
“For example, an NGO upgrading rural clinics, a bank implementing a micro-credit scheme, or an environmental group running an eco-tourist site, may all wish to include a communication component to their projects,” a Pfnet project paper explains.
Durable, proven and sustainable—these are the qualities that Leeming and his Pfnet manager, Randall Biliki, believe has made Pfnet a winner from the very start.
For the future, the two men have a long list of what Pfnet can develop into. Foremost is expanding its rural network, ensuring that more and more remote and isolated villages get connected to the superhighway of information technology. For email stations that justify the capital costs, an Immarsat modem can be added, to be used on demand, on a pay-as-you-go basis. Basic connections can also be upgraded where possible using VHF relaying or pay-as-you-go Internet access using satellite or other options.
True, the country may not have a highway or a freeway when compared to some of its neighbors in the Pacific islands, but when it comes to electronic mail and cyberspace, Solomon Islands is trail blazing for the rest of the Pacific through its People First Network.
