Telecom Technology Takes Rapid Strides

Over the past few years, telecom technology has been taking rapid strides in the Pacific islands region. The growth of mobile communications and even broadband Internet has been impressive, particularly in the last couple of years. Islands governments have also been actively reviewing their telecommunications-related legislations and making attempts to offer a choice of services and service providers to customers; a welcome departure from the traditional, monopolistic approach to key infrastructure services. Some countries have moved faster in liberalising the sector while others are still figuring a way out of decades-old mindsets and bureaucratic attitudes.

The region, though, has a long way to go before the sector is deregulated and services privatised in the sense that is in most of the developed world.

Technology takes off

Creditably, the region notched up a global first last year with Niue becoming the world's first nation to offer free Wi-Fi services
across-the-board to residents, business establishments, tourists, and everybody else in the island microstate. Several projects involving new telecommunication technologies have been underway in different parts of the region.

While Fiji has been tinkering with power line communications, Tonga already has a hybrid GSM-VSAT-IP-based system delivering video, voice and data across the country, thus successfully bringing broadband technologies to the region. Cook Islands Telecom too has been experimenting with providing Internet services using their power line infrastructure.

General Manager, Telecom Cook Islands, Phillip Henderson says, "Plans are afoot to use ICTs for telemedicine, education, e-governance and border control."

Almost the whole region has left behind the days of high frequency (HF) technology for overseas communications and migrated to digital satellite technology. But large investments are needed to percolate the benefits of satellite technology down to end-users in the islands. This may still take a few years to happen; depending on the capability and willingness of the island administrations to commit to the investments.

Asked how Tonga was following up on their impressive presentation at the WSIS meet in Geneva last December, Paula P Ma'u, Deputy Secretary of Tonga's Department of Communications says, "We're completely dedicated to ICT development. We're looking at the complete picture-technology, legislation, regulation, the human resources aspect, international and regional cooperation and tariffs."

Telecom tariffs have dropped 200 percent over the last couple of years (see interview with Ma'u).

The region has seen quicker growth in the mobile telephony sector. Moreover, the islands are increasingly interconnecting their mobile systems. This has entailed large investments both in terms of infrastructure, service delivery and software. While some of the islands still have old analogue networks, they are changing to digital technology. There are still a handful of islands that do not have any mobile telephone services, just as there are two countries with no television broadcasts; Kiribati and Tokelau.

The fast growth of mobile telephony and wireless services in the region is in line with such explosive growth in this sector in developing countries in other parts of the world, where over the decades, investment in telecommunications infrastructure has been grossly neglected for political or economic reasons. And as elsewhere in the world, in the Pacific islands too, this growth in mobile telephony is being fuelled by private players; either going it solo or in joint ventures with island governments.

Teledensity continues to be low

Teledensity, particularly of traditional fixed-line telephones, however, is still comparatively low given the logistic challenges that are wrought by the unique geographical attributes of this region. The costs of last mile connectivity are high given the sparsely and widely spread out population. Often, land ownership issues and even fears of vandalism get in the way of infrastructural expansion, as pointed out by Paul Banimbi of Telikom PNG. Besides, basic telecom services still continue to be largely controlled by monopolistic government-owned corporations. Policies have been slow in changing and regulatory mechanisms take time to be put in place. Most
governments, though, have put in place policies and targets to take telecom services to rural and remote locations within a timeframe.

Telecom Fiji, for instance, has undertaken to install about 200 solar-powered, low-maintenance rural terminals by the end of 2005 as a part of its satellite project. "Three hundred villages in the country still have no telecom facilities. Over 80 rural terminals will be installed by mid-2004," says Ivan Fong, Telecom Fiji's Manager, Interconnect and Regulatory and an office bearer of PITA.

Unlike mobile telephony, fixed line services are still in the complete control of monopolistic organisations, often government-owned and
controlled. In the years to come, growth in mobile telephony is sure to outstrip growth in fixed line telephones, as has happened almost all over the developing world.

While teledensity is low throughout the region for the most part, the Norfolk Islands bucks the trend with an amazing 122 percent
penetration; among the highest in the world, according to Kim Davis of the country's telco. At the other end of the spectrum is PNG with just 1.7 percent.

Patchy ICT growth

Though the region provides Internet services almost throughout, in many countries the bandwidth and quality of services are a far cry from what one would come to expect in other parts of the world. With bandwidths typically ranging between 64kbps and 1 to 5 Mbps (New Caledonia being a notable exception with 40 Mbps) and a steadily growing number of users, bandwidth at the user end can be chokingly narrow and the network cannot support anything more than basic text-and-graphics. Some countries like Tonga, French
Polynesia and New Caledonia have introduced broadband services recently, but in most countries Internet connectivity is woefully slow.

The region is connected with the outside world with several cables including the PacRim and the Southern Cross. There are also plans to install a new cable connecting Australia with the islands countries shortly. But like basic telecom services, Internet services are also under tight government control with costs of bandwidth being among the highest in the world, despite bandwidth costs consistently plummeting over the years.

Surveys show that most Pacific islanders hook up to the Internet at work followed by Internet cafes and educational institutions. Poor PC penetration and high cost of connectivity; thanks mainly to monopolies; are both responsible for low Internet usage in homes. In the entire region, only Samoa, Tonga and Papua New Guinea offer a choice of Internet service providers to their citizens.

Monopolistic mindsets

Monopolistic thinking has led to an attitude of "bandwidth and connectivity ownership" leading to conflicts between users and service providers. The recent deadlocked discussions on connectivity between the University of the South Pacific and Fiji's sole Internet provider is a case in point. The University of the South Pacific, therefore, is perhaps the only tertiary institution anywhere with 18,000 students and several hundred academics sharing a paltry 1 Mbps of bandwidth! In the words of a USP journalism programme student, "Receiving e-mail during peak times is like watching water come to a boil." A pity, especially since USP is a regional tertiary institution that caters for the whole Pacific islands region.

Changing attitudes will take some doing, especially since the "powers of connectivity" are often conferred on a single agency by a piece of anachronistic legislation. Some countries, however, are taking a thorough re-look at such legislation, typically put in place decades ago, centering on telegraphy and voice telephony existing at the time that they were drafted. ICTs have brought a paradigm shift in communications and most governments need time to factor in converged technologies, evolve regulatory frameworks and deal with ideas of free enterprise and competition before drafting new legislation.

Also, there are indications of developing serious customer-friendly policy even among the monopolists. Telecom Fiji's Chief Operating Officer Norman Nicholls made a detailed presentation of his organisation's customer satisfaction surveys at the PITA annual general meeting in Auckland.

Influencing policy

Development agencies like the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the International Telecom Union (ITU) are aiding these countries in drafting new legislation and a number of Pacific islands countries are making rapid strides.

"The pace of evolving technologies far outstrips the pace of policy making especially in the ICT sector," says Telecom Fiji's Fong. Last August, PITA and the South Pacific Community (SPC) signed a memorandum of understanding that is intended to help arrive at a mutually beneficial vision for the region's telecom service providers and streamline technical procedures relating to interconnect and networks. At the forum before signing the MoU in Noumea, the telecom organisations and SPC discussed competition and
deregulation issues threadbare.

The onslaught of technology and the strong and insistent demand from citizens to partake of its fruit has galvanised several governments into taking meaningful action.

Says Mark Yeoman, former CEO of SamoaTel, Samoa's telecom provider, "The government wants to increase competition and we are often called upon to offer our advice on a number of issues technical and commercial. In that sense, we play two roles; those of operator and policy-maker."

With governments' monopolistic attitudes changing (slowly though surely), privatisation increasingly gaining acceptance and the easy availability of technology at competitive costs is sure to usher in a phase of impressive growth in the telecom and the larger ICT sector in the Pacific islands region in the years to come.