Fiji's Telecom Bill To Be Tabled In Parliment

Anticipated for tabling in parliament sometime this year, Fiji's proposed telecommunications bill is expected to adopt regulatory telecommunications principles implemented in Europe. Telecommunications ministry's Josua Turaganivalu says the ministry is looking at some models particularly in the regulatory area.

"When you talk about interconnection, there are interconnection principles agreed and generally the whole world has looked at how that has progressed and the European principles are the most modern to date," Turaganivalu said.

"The United States is not a really good model. The US market has been liberalised since the 1800s and yet today when we look at the US they still face difficulties. Plus, their market is very competitive. If you're in the US telecommunications market today and you make a 0.1 percent profit at the end of the year, you're making it. So the market must be a really difficult market. We're looking more at ideals. And the ideals we've seen in terms of the principles that have been adopted in Europe look very good."

When Telpac came onto the Fiji scene, there was some aversion to the foreign- owned company because of its hardnosed tactics in trying to muscle through the rooted telecommunications industry in Fiji.

The Telpac hassle, says Turaganivalu, is an issue Fiji should learn from. That any entity coming into Fiji wishing to embark on providing telecommunications services will have to follow an administrative and legal process. Avoiding court cases as much as possible is ideal.

The European model on dispute resolution, says Turaganivalu, marks the telecommunications regulator as the final arbiter.

But if the decision is not agreed to by one of the parties, an independent arbitrator is available to redress the problem.

According to the European principle, the independent arbitrator comprises telecommunications experts who have the capacity to redress the decision of the regulator.

"If you look at the New Zealand model, they took on total deregulation in the late 1980s and early 1990s. As a result of their adopting that, there were a lot of litigation. In the end, the lawyers became the winners really. Court cases can be a long drawn-out process and a good example is the Telpac case, which started a year ago."

The proposed bill formalises the necessary platform for the sector's restructure and addresses the industry's transition to what is hoped to be a more liberalised market.

Although the restructuring of the sector means allowing room for competition in the provision of telecommunications services, the existing network will be allowed to remain exclusive for a while.

Exclusivity rights tagged to Fiji International Telecommunications Limited (FINTEL), Telecom Fiji (TFL) and TFL's subsidiary Vodafone are due to expire officially in 2014.

Turaganivalu notes that with investments such as the F$60-million Southern Cross venture by FINTEL and the F$45-million Telecom Fiji rural satellite project targeting villages in the Lau group, Yasawas, central Viti Levu, Kadavu and Rotuma, the entities will need to be given time to recover their costs.

In this restructure process the intention is also to discuss whether to shorten the exclusivity period. Already, the thinking has been floated that the discussion will be initiated to a point where there is an agreed position to take it forward.

"Why we say that is because some of the things that are happening now in terms of investments by TFL and FINTEL, we have to be realistic about. TFL and FINTEL are amenable to discussions bearing in mind that at the end, it should be an agreed solution. There is no time-frame at the moment."

Impediments to market competition such as pricing, establishing a regulatory body specifically for the telecommunications industry and telecommunications services to rural areas will be supported in the bill.