Low internet rates to boost PNG access

Whole of PNG should be able to connect to the Internet within two years, predicts Telikom PNG CEO Michael Donnelly, according to Business Advantage PNG.

In a wide-ranging review of PNG’s telecommunications industry, Mr Donnelly canvassed lower prices, new investment, takeovers and the impact of competition policy.

Speaking to the business watchdog this month, he said within two years, 100 per cent of Papua New Guineans will have access to modern communications technologies, including the Internet, as a result of a concerted effort to ensure everyone has access to stable, reliable, effective telecommunications.

Today, he said, about 85 to 90 per cent of the geography of the country is covered or has the capacity to connect to the internet either by a mobile or fixed line network or some sort of wireless solution.

But that is increasing, he said, pointing out the World Bank has let a tender for blackspots in those areas where there is no coverage and also to enable the upgraded ‘from 2G to 3G to 4G’ in some of those areas as well.

In conversation with Business Advantage International’s publishing director Andrew Wilkins, Donnelly told the 2015 PNG Advantage Investment Summit in Brisbane that competition policy is largely behind the move to connecting Papua New Guineans "to the modern world economy and the modern world of communications.

"In the last 18 months, we’ve reduced the wholesale price for data by about 60 per cent and the plan is to continue to drop that over the coming two to three years to get it to a point where we’re achieving international benchmarks," Mr Donnelly said.

He acknowledged the entrance of competitor Digicel into the PNG market "has achieved enormous things."

"But it has also thrown the challenge to Telikom to re-look at its business, re-look at the agility of its business and the ability to respond to customer demands in terms of service levels, coverage levels and things like that.

"I think the real innovation in competition policy is that the customer becomes the focus of your products and services as opposed to something else," Donnelly said.

He said convergent technology has seen customers asking for things "that are arriving on the shores of PNG not too far behind anywhere else in the world." - Business Advantage

Read more on >> PNG Technology News